Originally posted by Scripture1

Originally posted by Pappy13

Originally posted by Scripture1

Ok never mind that, just told him about it and he said he already thought about that and even called blizzard on it.

Blizzard said they would charge him $150.00 just to move one of his toons.... well he was not willing to do it and for that money I wouldn't either.

Nice thought though but a tad bit expensive :(

 

 

Ok, someone is not being honest now.  You don't have to even call Blizzard to do this, you can do it yourself under account maintenance.  Just select character transfer and then following the prompts.  It does cost $25 but not $150.  Both accounts do have to be active, but once he transfers the character he can close one of the accounts and save himself $15 a month.  The transfer will pay for itself in 2 months.

Edit:  The $25 is per character, so perhaps he has 6 toons that he wanted to transfer, that would cost $150, but he doesn't have to do them all, he can just pick and choose which ones to transfer.

 

Yeah I agree, now I have to call him and ask him to try this again, I never looked into this myself and when I get home tonight I'm sure gonna confirm since I have toons on other servers too.

He does have quite a few toons on that account, I think 9 or ten but your absolutly right, he certainly does not need to transfer all. Going to talk some sence into him and atleast suggest he transfers the three that he wants. ........(paused to call him)..............That was my bad, he did'nt say call , infact I just called him to see if thats what he did. He said he can only email them cause he can't find a number to call. Told him you confirmed it was $25 and not $150 and he said if that's the case he will do it but he remembers looking into the "manage account" section and seeiing the "realm change" for that amount but in order to swtch toons from account to account it would be lots more. I told him just to be optomistic and check it out. If blizzard can switch us from realm to realm for $25 then account to account owned by the same card holder should be just the same I would think, no?

EDIT: Just thought of something, wouldn't a realm change be the same as an account addition? If I have a toon on magtheridon and one on Undermine, separate accounts. Then request a realm change for all to go to Undermine then blizzard would just combine my toons right I would think. Why transfer both accounts to one server and then still pay separatly? He must have been wrong or maybe you right he must have been trying to transfer multiple toons at once.

Thnx again.

It's $25 per character regardless of it's to another realm or another account.  In fact you can even do both at the same time for just $25.  He must have been thinking about moving more than 1 character which can get a little expensive.

I can relate to the frustration of this story, but for me it's only occurred once, and just recently. I last played WoW 11/17/08 and triedto log in last night and got the message that my account information was invalid. I have not recently changed my password but I went tothe WoW support site to have them email me my password and got the message that my email address is not the correct address that's attached to the account, and I know that's not correct either....

My website surfiing habits haven't changed  from my previous four years of gaming, so i'm not sure how i would have been 'keylogged', or if any of the sites I visit do have keylogging, why neither WoW nor LOTRO have been hacked in the past.

Is it possible the expansion isn't as secure as it should be? Could Blizzard have broken something?
 

Originally posted by Daffid011

If he is only getting hacked on certain accounts, then there is more to this story than someone is telling. 

 

No offense, but the more I read the more this is turning into one of those stories where someone is covering up something that happened.  It may be your friend or you or something else, I don't know and at this point it really doesn't matter.  Past experience is telling me something is not right about the story, like your friend does share his password with account renters or something equally stupid like that.  It fits 100% with how they operate seeing as the "hacker" logged on minutes after he logged off.  Usually after chatting over AIM or another instant messenger. 

 

All I can tell you is that your friend is doing something dangerous and spending money on transfering characters will not change that unless he stops doing whatever it is that is putting his accounts in danger AND cleans off anything dangerous from his system.  I know it is hard to turn the a weary eye towards your friends, but you might want to sit down with your "friend" and find out what is really going on.

 

There is enough information in this thread to teach safe habits and fix the problem.  If he wants to stick his fingers in his ears and think he knows what to do then good luck to him.  Perhaps the 5th time is the lucky charm for him. 

Well first let me thank everyone for all the helpful advice that I have recieved in posting this thread. Then let me say Daffid01; I'm not sure what about this story you are unsure about or leads you to any speculations, but rest assured the person I am refering to here is NOT myself and I have way better thiings to do that to post a thread and cover things up, kinda pointless and would be an extremely mindless thing to do.

My account has NEVER been hacked, if my account were ever hacked I would stop playing all together and just wait on Aion to release :) so I hope that cures your speculations of my "friend" really being me, if not I can't say anything else to convince you.

Anyhow, maybe because I have been going back-and-forth calling him on the phone while posting on this thread why you are finding suspicions? I don't know but believe me, I'm too old for games (except mmorpg) I just wanted to help this guy because he has helped me a LOT in real life and we are cool as friends. I would expect my friend to try and help me too and he does not post in forums like this and since I do I decided what better way to find a solution than to post with people that may have experienced the same thing since they play the game too.

Pappy, I got him to change over his charcters to his warlock account, I was able to say "i told you so" when he only had to pay $25 per toon. He transfered his pld and his deathknight but had to purchase the WoTLK for the account because he only had the expansion on the hunter account. The entire change over cost him $90 for 2 characters and the expansion upgrade. I don't think he will have this issue again after the transfer and the antivirus he now has installed but we shall see.

And again, Thank you for all the information guys, and to everyone that thinks this was made up......lets just say now there is a thread where such information as this will come in handy, God forbid this happens to you and your seeking help in a forum such as this one, you wouldnt want people to think you came to tell a lie for no reason would you? :)

Oh and he is not gonna get the key from blizzard Pappy, I am though because it's cheap and there would'nt be any reason not to get extra protection.

If I was *hacked* 4 times, I most certainly would get that Blizzard authenticator. I think I would be paranoid enough by then.

I really hope your friend will never be hacked again, but I fear the worst. If he never found out what caused his other account to be compromised, then whatever it was* must still be there. (* either a program or actions of himself that we can not know).

All i'm going to say is the whole story sounds like BS, and I think someone needs to quit selling/trading their wow account on Markee Dragon ;)

Originally posted by razgar

All i'm going to say is the whole story sounds like BS, and I think someone needs to quit selling/trading their wow account on Markee Dragon ;)

I just coudn't resist responding to this one lol. Now PLEASE PLEASE can anyone explain why they would come on a forum, knowing they are involved in illegal account activity which involves potentially losing your accounts to banning or hackers because you compromise the account by selling it or doing other things where people are getting access.

Razgar, listen man, no offense but if you think the story is BS then just don't respond, you posting that you don't believe something does not help the situation in the least. I am glad I got most of the good posts before you even saw this to respond or I may have gotten frustrated and not even checked the thread again.

I wonder which post I made on here that suggested he is selling accounts????? To come up with this conclusion even though I addressed this idea earlier is...... I won't even say it, I don't like attacking peoples character and I don't even know you. Just keep your comments to yourself :)

well this is a forum so technically you can post anything you want and that includes ideas, accusations, suspicions etc. So please post on :) I won't bother to even respond.

A lot of times people are just to shy to come right out and say it is really themselves they are talking about.  If it isn't you that is fine, I didn't mean to offend you.

However I am going to stick by my opinion that something is missing.  If your friend has been hacked four times switching accounts will not change that.  Why would he be safe on another account instead of the old account.  There has to be something else like he sold the accounts, shared the account information or something like that. 

The advice on this thread has been pretty much unanimous on what he should do and your friend thinks he knows a better solution?  Either he isn't telling the whole story or the guy who has been hacked 4 times thinks he knows more than everyone else.  See my point?

At the very least have him spend the $6.50 on the authenticator. 

Originally posted by TalRasha

If I was *hacked* 4 times, I most certainly would get that Blizzard authenticator. I think I would be paranoid enough by then.

 

I really hope your friend will never be hacked again, but I fear the worst. If he never found out what caused his other account to be compromised, then whatever it was* must still be there. (* either a program or actions of himself that we can not know).

Yeah, unfortunatly he is as stuborn as a mule sometimes. I pretty much did my part and at least got him to do the character transfers. The thing is I think he just being lazy not wiping the system again like I advise but from here on out if this happens again I won't have much to say. I did get a bit annoyed that I had to CONVINVCE him that it could be a keylogger lol. He refused to believe that it was one because he cleaned the system once and it happened again ( I don't undertsnd that either) which is why he won't believe that getting the key from blizzard would help. The thing (that I won't bother explaining to him again) that he don't get is that the key with almost eliminate any and all chances of this happening, the way it's advertised on site sold me on it 100%.

Originally posted by Daffid011

A lot of times people are just to shy to come right out and say it is really themselves they are talking about.  If it isn't you that is fine, I didn't mean to offend you.

However I am going to stick by my opinion that something is missing.  If your friend has been hacked four times switching accounts will not change that.  Why would he be safe on another account instead of the old account.  There has to be something else like he sold the accounts, shared the account information or something like that. 

 

The advice on this thread has been pretty much unanimous on what he should do and your friend thinks he knows a better solution?  Either he isn't telling the whole story or the guy who has been hacked 4 times thinks he knows more than everyone else.  See my point?

 

At the very least have him spend the $6.50 on the authenticator. 

Yeah, I'm done trying to convince him on the authenticator. He said "NAH" twice so, yeah. I can't understand the whole "only that account keeps getting hacked" thing either. Maybe he entered his information somewhere, if I were him I would atleast try to find out how it keeps happeneing. I remember when someone in North carolina used my credit card to order a boat load of porn crap and I would'nt stop hunting them down, had to contact the authorities down there and everything, which was hard to do since I'm all the way in PA. I would never just sweap this under the rug. In a way I felt like I cared more about finding out the problem than he did. He's cool and all but just seemed eager to get back in the game more than anything else which like someone said earlier, will not solve the issue.

Daffid011 I think your right to an extent when I think about it. No one just gets hacked by doing nothing. I believe you must have done something to make yourself volnerable because hackers don't just randomly pick you (I don't think). He DOES need to be more aware and maybe this is his wake-up call. If this don't get him to be more safe with the net then I dunno what will.

On a brighter note, by the time he transfered his toons I was the lvl as he is and I beat him down like no tomorrow lol ( I just had to brag srry)

 Edit: He never won a single duel this time, I'm the man :)

I apologize for sounding so rude but it is the truth. Getting hacked four times on the same account means one of two things:

1) You're not very smart

                or

2) You're selling/trading your account/account info.

I know you said why would they come and ask about it if they were involved in that kind of stuff. Let me say that I cannot count how many times i've seen people post on the worldofwarcraft.com forums about their account being hacked because they traded it. Heck i've even seen people post there asking how to use the bot "mmo glider".

Sorry for the late reply.

I'm working for an antivirus company, so I hope I can shed some light onto the matter. Recently, the malware businesses started attacking MMOs directly, writing malware explicitly targeted at MMOs to gain access to MMO accounts. While probably not as profitable as trying to get your online banking credentials, it's easier and you usually get away with your loot. Think robbing 7/11s instead of banks.

Being hacked 4 times sounds like you have one of those gems of malware, as has been suggested earlier. Losing all your toons but the lv70 also indicates that, after all you should play your top level toon and not level some new toon, to maximize the profit for the attacker for the next time he comes harvesting you. And the best suggestion (i.e. formating and reinstalling) was already given, which I would also recommend. But allow me to take it a step further to keep you from getting infected again.

First of all, stay away from dubious third party "tools". I'm not talking about plugins (which you should also only get from trusted sources, btw), which are usually safe. You can run Omen or Gatherer just fine, no worries there. But be wary of "special editions" or other wannabe goodies you find in P2P. Not trying to trash P2P, but it simply is nothing I could put into the "trusted source" bin. When there's version 2.3 on the official server and you find something like a "new and improved" 2.4 on P2P, 99 out of 100 times you're dealing with something bogus.

The plugin itself would even be safe (at least as long as there's no inherent bug in the LUA engine, of which I wouldn't be aware of right now), but they usually come with some installer to make it easier for you to put it into the correct directory and plug it into your game. It's trivial for malware writers to bundle their malware into the installation process.

I would be especially wary of "botting tools" or similar. A lot of them are bugged as well. And since there's hardly something that could be called "trusted source" for something that is against a game's EULA, you can never know what you get unless you know how to take it apart and take a look at its inner workings. Usually it's not worth the risk.

Besides getting an antivirus tool, I would also recommend getting Spyware search tools like Spybot S&D, which also has a registry surveillance tool that warns you if anything wants to change critical parts of your registry. I would also recommend getting SpywareBlaster, which contains a feature that automatically blacklists and blocks URLs that are known as malware hosts and dropoff sits (i.e. the servers that a keylogger would report to), so that even if you get infected you have a chance that no info can reach your attacker.

Both of those tools are freeware (in their basic version, which is enough), so it doesn't even cost you.

Happy gaming, and stay safe!

Originally posted by Chlodwig

Sorry for the late reply.

I'm working for an antivirus company, so I hope I can shed some light onto the matter. Recently, the malware businesses started attacking MMOs directly, writing malware explicitly targeted at MMOs to gain access to MMO accounts. While probably not as profitable as trying to get your online banking credentials, it's easier and you usually get away with your loot. Think robbing 7/11s instead of banks.

Being hacked 4 times sounds like you have one of those gems of malware, as has been suggested earlier. Losing all your toons but the lv70 also indicates that, after all you should play your top level toon and not level some new toon, to maximize the profit for the attacker for the next time he comes harvesting you. And the best suggestion (i.e. formating and reinstalling) was already given, which I would also recommend. But allow me to take it a step further to keep you from getting infected again.

First of all, stay away from dubious third party "tools". I'm not talking about plugins (which you should also only get from trusted sources, btw), which are usually safe. You can run Omen or Gatherer just fine, no worries there. But be wary of "special editions" or other wannabe goodies you find in P2P. Not trying to trash P2P, but it simply is nothing I could put into the "trusted source" bin. When there's version 2.3 on the official server and you find something like a "new and improved" 2.4 on P2P, 99 out of 100 times you're dealing with something bogus.

The plugin itself would even be safe (at least as long as there's no inherent bug in the LUA engine, of which I wouldn't be aware of right now), but they usually come with some installer to make it easier for you to put it into the correct directory and plug it into your game. It's trivial for malware writers to bundle their malware into the installation process.

I would be especially wary of "botting tools" or similar. A lot of them are bugged as well. And since there's hardly something that could be called "trusted source" for something that is against a game's EULA, you can never know what you get unless you know how to take it apart and take a look at its inner workings. Usually it's not worth the risk.

Besides getting an antivirus tool, I would also recommend getting Spyware search tools like Spybot S&D, which also has a registry surveillance tool that warns you if anything wants to change critical parts of your registry. I would also recommend getting SpywareBlaster, which contains a feature that automatically blacklists and blocks URLs that are known as malware hosts and dropoff sits (i.e. the servers that a keylogger would report to), so that even if you get infected you have a chance that no info can reach your attacker.

Both of those tools are freeware (in their basic version, which is enough), so it doesn't even cost you.

Happy gaming, and stay safe!

 Actually , not too long ago it was reported most mmo accounts are worth more than what an average person has in there bank account. And like you said , its a much easier target. They really need to give a crash course on not getting hacked.

Originally posted by Scripture1

I will make this as detailed and short as possible.

I have a friend that plays WoW and he has a high lvl toons that has been hacked 4 times so far, every time they hack him blizzard tells him they will not release the account back over to him until they investigate it. Thet first time blizzard returned the account to him, many of his alts were deleted and lost, only his lvl 70 hunter was left and they took all his gold and tossed many of his BG armor (That's just evil).

The second time his account was hacked was a shock because he changed his passwords and everything but they still hacked it. They made him wait 2 weeks both times they hacked it and he had to fax a lot of documentation to blizzard just to get his account back, everytime he gets his account hacked he has to go through a lot of faxing stuff to get it back. It has happened four times, the latest it has happened was lastnight.

We were both lvling out deathnights and I logged out for bed before he did. He logged out at 12:00am. Another friend we play with (we are friends in RL) logged in and saw his hunter exploring the new area, my other friend whispered him and said "Hi bro" because thats how we address eachother, we never just say "hello" but this person responding with a "hello" and when my friend caught on that it was not him he started questioning him but he never got a response. He called him in the morning to ask him if that was him or not and he was just as shocked as anything; he said it wasn't him and when he tried to log in after my friend told him, he was told that his account is under investigation.

This guy is a good friend of mine and he wont even give me his info (not that I want it) and I asked if he ever shared his info with anyone he said no. I'm tired of this happening to him as I know he is as well but blizzard won't do anything about it. I think who ever is hacking his account is doing so easily because they have his "Content ID" when we played FFXI we never had this issue because of the security and privacy of the game. I'm telling him to ask blizzard to change his Content ID but he was told they won't do that. I think they should be obligated to do so since there is nothing that he can do to stop the hacking, and that is a breach of the privacy agreement. I don't want to make this too long so basicaly I'm asking if this has happened to anyone else on WoW, and if so then what is the permanent solution if there is one?

I would hate to see him give up and quit because of this.

THNX!

Easily a Keylogger issue. Getting the account back and keeping it can be rather easy or hard. This all depends on what all he did while his pc was infected. Ex. If he used his secret word for his wow account, he might be very screwed. Somebody I know had this exact problem and when she would get her account back it would just be taken away, later we figured that the secret word for the WoW account was compromised. Blizzard is very strick (as far as I have been told, and experienced) on your secret word. They never let you change it as far as I know. Good luck though, I know this situation has to suck.

Edit: Like the guy said a bit above, get Spybot S&D. It is a really good anit-spyware program. It will literally proc a yes or no question for things being changed on your pc.

Originally posted by Bama1267

Originally posted by Chlodwig
(cut for space)

 

 Actually , not too long ago it was reported most mmo accounts are worth more than what an average person has in there bank account. And like you said , its a much easier target. They really need to give a crash course on not getting hacked.

Well, I highly disagree (unless you got your account maxed out ... ok, when you're a hardcore gamer with no life there's a chance...:)), but when you consider where the attackers come from, those maybe 300 bucks are a fortune when you earn about 200 a month. This is generally the problem with malware, the "damage" isn't too big (ok, unless they target banks), but what we consider little damage (i.e. less than, say, 1000 bucks) is heaps of money in a country where your hourly wage is measured in cents so you don't have to put a 0 before the decimal point.

And the internet doesn't care too much about borders.

Not getting hacked is easier said than done. There are so many entry points today that you can't just say "don't open unknown e-mails and steer cleer of Russian sexpages". It just doesn't work that way anymore. Recently I saw a hijacked lyrics-page that tried to push malware with bogus iframes. Usually it's more pages of hotels, restaurants and small home businesses that get hacked and transformed into malware chuckers. There is no longer a page you can safely assume "safe", maybe pages from large companies that can and do employ a fleet of dedicated staff to ensure their pages are clean and hard to hack, but the malware spread through hacked pages is still on the rise (as if the level wasn't already alarming).

Now, it would be easy to tell people to switch to Linux, which is safe. More due to a lack of market share than inherent security (let's not get into that discussion). But few games run on it, even with Wine. Mac is often an option, but few are willing to pay that price.

The best you can do is to avoid questionable software from dubious sources and instead run software that detects malware and keeps it from infesting your computer. It's by no means a 100% fool-proof way to stay secure, but it's as good as it gets.

Originally posted by Chlodwig

Sorry for the late reply.

I'm working for an antivirus company, so I hope I can shed some light onto the matter. Recently, the malware businesses started attacking MMOs directly, writing malware explicitly targeted at MMOs to gain access to MMO accounts. While probably not as profitable as trying to get your online banking credentials, it's easier and you usually get away with your loot. Think robbing 7/11s instead of banks.

Being hacked 4 times sounds like you have one of those gems of malware, as has been suggested earlier. Losing all your toons but the lv70 also indicates that, after all you should play your top level toon and not level some new toon, to maximize the profit for the attacker for the next time he comes harvesting you. And the best suggestion (i.e. formating and reinstalling) was already given, which I would also recommend. But allow me to take it a step further to keep you from getting infected again.

First of all, stay away from dubious third party "tools". I'm not talking about plugins (which you should also only get from trusted sources, btw), which are usually safe. You can run Omen or Gatherer just fine, no worries there. But be wary of "special editions" or other wannabe goodies you find in P2P. Not trying to trash P2P, but it simply is nothing I could put into the "trusted source" bin. When there's version 2.3 on the official server and you find something like a "new and improved" 2.4 on P2P, 99 out of 100 times you're dealing with something bogus.

The plugin itself would even be safe (at least as long as there's no inherent bug in the LUA engine, of which I wouldn't be aware of right now), but they usually come with some installer to make it easier for you to put it into the correct directory and plug it into your game. It's trivial for malware writers to bundle their malware into the installation process.

I would be especially wary of "botting tools" or similar. A lot of them are bugged as well. And since there's hardly something that could be called "trusted source" for something that is against a game's EULA, you can never know what you get unless you know how to take it apart and take a look at its inner workings. Usually it's not worth the risk.

Besides getting an antivirus tool, I would also recommend getting Spyware search tools like Spybot S&D, which also has a registry surveillance tool that warns you if anything wants to change critical parts of your registry. I would also recommend getting SpywareBlaster, which contains a feature that automatically blacklists and blocks URLs that are known as malware hosts and dropoff sits (i.e. the servers that a keylogger would report to), so that even if you get infected you have a chance that no info can reach your attacker.

Both of those tools are freeware (in their basic version, which is enough), so it doesn't even cost you.

Happy gaming, and stay safe!

Excellent and well writen, one of the best and most imforamtive post I've ever readed on this site, thank you!

Advice? Tell your friend to stop visiting the darker 3rd party WOW sites that supply all those apps that are against the Terms. He then might stop obtaining Trojans downloaded through these sites or the software obtained off them.   Another possibility is his using gold sellers services.  Whatever the source of the issue his got a keylogger/trojan on his system. Or his given his account details to other wow players in his friends group at school.

Originally posted by IAmMMO

Advice? Tell your friend to stop visiting the darker 3rd party WOW sites that supply all those apps that are against the Terms. He then might stop obtaining Trojans downloaded through these sites or the software obtained off them.   Another possibility is his using gold sellers services.  Whatever the source of the issue his got a keylogger/trojan on his system. Or his given his account details to other wow players in his friends group at school.

I only personally know one person who had their account hacked and it was hacked more than once.  That was my friends wife.. and she never used 3rd party apps or bought gold or shared her info.

I imagine she probably clicked the link in one of those MSN spams that comes from a friend who got that rootkit trojan that's been floating around.. or she probably missed a security update for IE.

Beyond that.. ya obviously they aren't finding whatever is on the comp and it certainly sounds like the hard drive wasn't formatted.

Its obviously not going to do them much good to keep changing the password when the door is still open for the outside source to get the information.

Oh and if they use MSN... probably be a good idea to change that password especially if they have MSN for email.  Simply because that trojan/rootkit combo.. hijacks your msn info so that account would only be a "forgotten password" away...

Originally posted by Emeraq

I can relate to the frustration of this story, but for me it's only occurred once, and just recently. I last played WoW 11/17/08 and triedto log in last night and got the message that my account information was invalid. I have not recently changed my password but I went tothe WoW support site to have them email me my password and got the message that my email address is not the correct address that's attached to the account, and I know that's not correct either....

My website surfiing habits haven't changed  from my previous four years of gaming, so i'm not sure how i would have been 'keylogged', or if any of the sites I visit do have keylogging, why neither WoW nor LOTRO have been hacked in the past.

Is it possible the expansion isn't as secure as it should be? Could Blizzard have broken something?
 

New content does not change authentication process. No, Blizzard did not break something. The accounts are not being hacked at the point of Blizzard's servers, they are being hacked at the point of the player's PC.

You can also drive the same way to work every day, and one day you have an accident. It doesn't mean the road is broken, and the fact that you didn't have an accident in the past is irrelevant.

I have played WoW since release. I have worked in internet security and consider myself a fairly intelligent user. I have never had my accounts hacked.

Despite these facts I have also bought an authenticator. Now I am *sure* that it won't be hacked. It's probably safer than my bank account now.

The guys making their livings from this are coming up with better and better ways to get their hands on the accounts. It just comes down to 'what level of risk are you comfortable with?'

Originally posted by Chlodwig

Sorry for the late reply.

I'm working for an antivirus company, so I hope I can shed some light onto the matter. Recently, the malware businesses started attacking MMOs directly, writing malware explicitly targeted at MMOs to gain access to MMO accounts. While probably not as profitable as trying to get your online banking credentials, it's easier and you usually get away with your loot. Think robbing 7/11s instead of banks.

Being hacked 4 times sounds like you have one of those gems of malware, as has been suggested earlier. Losing all your toons but the lv70 also indicates that, after all you should play your top level toon and not level some new toon, to maximize the profit for the attacker for the next time he comes harvesting you. And the best suggestion (i.e. formating and reinstalling) was already given, which I would also recommend. But allow me to take it a step further to keep you from getting infected again.

First of all, stay away from dubious third party "tools". I'm not talking about plugins (which you should also only get from trusted sources, btw), which are usually safe. You can run Omen or Gatherer just fine, no worries there. But be wary of "special editions" or other wannabe goodies you find in P2P. Not trying to trash P2P, but it simply is nothing I could put into the "trusted source" bin. When there's version 2.3 on the official server and you find something like a "new and improved" 2.4 on P2P, 99 out of 100 times you're dealing with something bogus.

The plugin itself would even be safe (at least as long as there's no inherent bug in the LUA engine, of which I wouldn't be aware of right now), but they usually come with some installer to make it easier for you to put it into the correct directory and plug it into your game. It's trivial for malware writers to bundle their malware into the installation process.

I would be especially wary of "botting tools" or similar. A lot of them are bugged as well. And since there's hardly something that could be called "trusted source" for something that is against a game's EULA, you can never know what you get unless you know how to take it apart and take a look at its inner workings. Usually it's not worth the risk.

Besides getting an antivirus tool, I would also recommend getting Spyware search tools like Spybot S&D, which also has a registry surveillance tool that warns you if anything wants to change critical parts of your registry. I would also recommend getting SpywareBlaster, which contains a feature that automatically blacklists and blocks URLs that are known as malware hosts and dropoff sits (i.e. the servers that a keylogger would report to), so that even if you get infected you have a chance that no info can reach your attacker.

Both of those tools are freeware (in their basic version, which is enough), so it doesn't even cost you.

Happy gaming, and stay safe!

This is great information, I have spybot S&D on my PC, can't remember how long I have had it but after reading this I'm thinking thats probably what has also kept me from being hacked, among other things.

Again, very helpful info, THNX!

Spybot S&D doesn't prevent any infections. In fact, it cannot really detect malware like an antivirus program. All Spybot does is give you a heads-up when something is about to change that is critical to your system environment (IF you have the resident portion enabled, that is!). So when you install some new service pack for windows or when you install some piece of software that should dig in your system (like, say, a driver or some game with a godforsaken copy protection that cripples your system to hell and back) and you get popups, you know that this is probably ok because, hey, you're changing system relevant things in your system.

When you're just surfing and suddenly you get the same strange requests, you know that something very, very bad is going down.

Spybot S&D does NOT replace an antivirus suit (and I don't say that because I develop one, I get paid whether or not you buy one, most likely you'll buy a competitor product anyway, at least if you're halfway smart). Spybot informs you that something system relevant is about to change. AV software hunts for known threats and removes them actively. Neither replaces the other!