"World of Warcraft" Blizzard Entertainment's popular massive multiplayer online roll playing game (MMORPG), has been experiencing some security issues. The game requires users to set up an account in order to pay the game's monthly fee and reap all of the benefits of the game's online community. In a statement released on Wednesday, the company confirmed that several account had been hacked.
According to Joystiq, the controversy began when players began reporting news of several players who had lost their in-game gold after someone logged into their account and spent much of the gold there on overpriced junk-items in the game's auction house network. This is a way to fraudulently launder the stolen game currency to the account of the person who posted the junk item on the mobile auction house application.
Apparently, the problem became so rampant, with people on U.S. forums for the game claiming they'd lost hundreds of thousands of gold, that Blizzard Entertainment was forced to shut down the mobile armory application temporarily.
Wednesday, a security warning was issued from Blizzard to all "World of Warcraft" subscribers.
"There's been a recent increase in unauthorized World of Warcraft account-logins via our website and the World of Warcraft mobile armory app." The statement read. "We're in the process of notifying any account holders who were not using an authenticator and whose account showed signs of unauthorized access (e.g., logging in from an unusual IP address). If you are among this group, you will receive an email describing how to reset your account."
As a result of these activities, access to the World of Warcraft auction house via the mobile app has been taken off-line temporarily. Upon request, our customer support team will restore in-game items and gold for any accounts impacted.
While no means of account security is guaranteed, every precaution you take to secure your computer and your account-including changing your password periodically-adds another defensive barrier. We strongly encourage everyone to take a few moments to read through"h the security tips available on our support website and follow the suggestions posted there."
Currently, Blizzard is working on another MMORPG completely different from its popular "World of Warcraft." CVG reports the project is codenamed "Titan" and is undergoing a large design and technology change, pushing its release date back to 2016.
