Looks like there was something to all those acct hacks...

And on another note:

What's the matter MMORPG.com, don't report "real news" or only when it is bad about a paid advertiser?

Full Story:

Gamesutra Link

Blizzard sued over lax security in Battle.net hacking

Blizzard Entertainment is facing a class action lawsuit for allegedly not doing enough to protect its customers' private information when hackers breached the security of its Battle.net service.

Last August, hackers managed to break into Battle.net -- which is used for the online features of popular Blizzard games like Diablo III and StarCraft II -- and steal user data including email addresses, personal security questions, and information related to the mobile/dial-in authenticators meant to offer more security to users on the service.

And now lead plaintiff Benjamin Bell is suing Blizzard and its parent company Activision Blizzard, seeking damages for consumer fraud, negligence, unjust enrichment, breach of contract, and bailment, according to a report from Courthouse News.

The suit takes particular issue with Blizzard "deceptively and unfairly" requiring players to purchase additional products to protect their accounts instead of making its service more secure. Bell claims that Blizzard has made $26 million from sales of its authenticators.

"Defendants negligently, deliberately, and/or recklessly fail to ensure that adequate, reasonable procedures safeguard the private information stored on this website," reads the complaint, which was filed with the California Central District Court.

Bell also says that Blizzard did not take the legally required steps fo alert players that their accounts were compromised. He is seeking class damages and an injunction to prevent Blizzard from requiring users to sign up for Battle.net accounts to play its games, and from requiring after-sale products to enhance customers' security.

 

Law suits are one thing. You got to win them first, and hope the other guy does not appeal.  

The thing about these class actions is that the lawers make most of the money.  I been in a few of those as well.  The most I ever got was 14 bucks over one of them due to so many folks.  I am in a pending one against vonage, lol I bet I never see a dime after the lawers are done. 

Well I'm not surprised tbh, there are a lot of secrets behind closed doors. Those who didn't like the battle.net had an idea this was going to happen, blizzard was losing its customers at the time it was some lame excuse to boost the profits for blizzard to install battle.net and sell these security keys. I have a feeling it was blizzard employees or someone outside who was hired to hack into its users accounts, wouldn't surprise me one bit not just because its blizzard but in general a lot of companies do this behind closed doors. 

Originally posted by Phry
Sounds more like some dodgy lawyer type out to either  make a name for themselves or/and money, though how you managed to link Blizzard and Sony together in this, is just weird. More than likely the attempted lawsuit will fail anyway, its a bit like the google vs apple thing, its only newsworthy if its successful, so to speak, lawsuits are just an occupational hazard for large companies, especially with so many chancers around.

Well, one of the big ones for me is the whole thing with selling authenticators.

If Bliz knew people needed to use an authenticator, they they knew that their network/acct security was not good enough. If they knew their security was not good enough, they should have fixed it. They can afford it.

And they REALLY shouldn't have charged people for a separate product to make up for that shoddy system in place to protect people's personal data.

They should have either incorporated the authenticator functionality into the main program, or given the authenticator away for free.

Great, another junk lawsuit. Just what any legal system needs these days, right?

Sounds like a group of folks just have their panties in a bunch because they got phished, and are looking for someone else to blame rather than take responsibility for their own bad security practices.

Sigh... that's the entitlement generation for you.

Originally posted by Roxtarr
Authenticators weren't created because of bad security on Blizzard's end.  They were created to protect gamers from themselves.

very true and the mobile version is also free...

Originally posted by Burntvet

Looks like there was something to all those acct hacks...

And on another note:

What's the matter MMORPG.com, don't report "real news" or only when it is bad about a paid advertiser?

 

Full Story:

Gamesutra Link

 

Blizzard sued over lax security in Battle.net hacking

 

Blizzard Entertainment is facing a class action lawsuit for allegedly not doing enough to protect its customers' private information when hackers breached the security of its Battle.net service.

Last August, hackers managed to break into Battle.net -- which is used for the online features of popular Blizzard games like Diablo III and StarCraft II -- and steal user data including email addresses, personal security questions, and information related to the mobile/dial-in authenticators meant to offer more security to users on the service.

And now lead plaintiff Benjamin Bell is suing Blizzard and its parent company Activision Blizzard, seeking damages for consumer fraud, negligence, unjust enrichment, breach of contract, and bailment, according to a report from Courthouse News.

The suit takes particular issue with Blizzard "deceptively and unfairly" requiring players to purchase additional products to protect their accounts instead of making its service more secure. Bell claims that Blizzard has made $26 million from sales of its authenticators.

"Defendants negligently, deliberately, and/or recklessly fail to ensure that adequate, reasonable procedures safeguard the private information stored on this website," reads the complaint, which was filed with the California Central District Court.

Bell also says that Blizzard did not take the legally required steps fo alert players that their accounts were compromised. He is seeking class damages and an injunction to prevent Blizzard from requiring users to sign up for Battle.net accounts to play its games, and from requiring after-sale products to enhance customers' security.

 

something tells me this will be settled out of court...kudos to the guy with the balls to do it though.

The class action lawsuit over Sony's Playstation Network being hacked was thrown out of court.

The same is likely to happen here.

The Authenticator it to try and "fix stupid". 9 times out of 10 when someone gets hacked it is because they went to a bad website. But people never want to admit they clicked on a shady link in an e-mail or went to a bad website.

Originally posted by Xiaoki

The Authenticator it to try and "fix stupid". 9 times out of 10 when someone gets hacked it is because they went to a bad website. But people never want to admit they clicked on a shady link in an e-mail or went to a bad website.

And then there are people like me. I've got separate passwords for my Battle.net account and the email it is tied to. My account got locked for "suspicious activity". I changed both passwords and even bought a new computer (not because of that incident, of course, it was just time to upgrade). Now my account is locked again. And NO, I have honestly not attempted logging on to any totallylegitbattlenetfreegold.com or something retarded like that. I haven't shared my passwords with ANYONE.

This is the only one of my hundreds of accounts on various websites that has been compromised.

It's not like I have any proof but sometimes I wonder what the fuck Blizzard is up to.

Originally posted by Burntvet

Originally posted by Phry
Sounds more like some dodgy lawyer type out to either  make a name for themselves or/and money, though how you managed to link Blizzard and Sony together in this, is just weird. More than likely the attempted lawsuit will fail anyway, its a bit like the google vs apple thing, its only newsworthy if its successful, so to speak, lawsuits are just an occupational hazard for large companies, especially with so many chancers around.

Well, one of the big ones for me is the whole thing with selling authenticators.

If Bliz knew people needed to use an authenticator, they they knew that their network/acct security was not good enough. If they knew their security was not good enough, they should have fixed it. They can afford it.

And they REALLY shouldn't have charged people for a separate product to make up for that shoddy system in place to protect people's personal data.

They should have either incorporated the authenticator functionality into the main program, or given the authenticator away for free.

 

And yet Blizzard arent the only company to have authenticators as an option, the reality is that they do add significant levels of security to any game,  or online service as you can get authenticators now for bank accounts etc. Blizzard even went so far as to make the mobile app authenticator virtually free, its only the physical tokens that are in any way, 'expensive' and tbh, at £6 its hardly that. no, this lawsuit will be thrown out, chances are if you look at the guy attempting this, is that he has a history of dodgy lawsuits initiated by him, and that the only thing he is about is money, personally i wouldnt give them the time of day, as you usually find the same types are also into 'ambulance chasing' the only thing that surprises me is that anybody gives them any credence whatsoever.

Originally posted by Roxtarr
Authenticators weren't created because of bad security on Blizzard's end.  They were created to protect gamers from themselves.

Atually from what I've read i think both is true(bad security + a touch of ignorance).

But in truth I think the authenticators were created as a way to get the customers to pay for the security that would otherwise come out of the payments already being made(game cost, sub etc).

Originally posted by Burntvet

Originally posted by Phry
Sounds more like some dodgy lawyer type out to either  make a name for themselves or/and money, though how you managed to link Blizzard and Sony together in this, is just weird. More than likely the attempted lawsuit will fail anyway, its a bit like the google vs apple thing, its only newsworthy if its successful, so to speak, lawsuits are just an occupational hazard for large companies, especially with so many chancers around.

Well, one of the big ones for me is the whole thing with selling authenticators.

If Bliz knew people needed to use an authenticator, they they knew that their network/acct security was not good enough. If they knew their security was not good enough, they should have fixed it. They can afford it.

And they REALLY shouldn't have charged people for a separate product to make up for that shoddy system in place to protect people's personal data.

They should have either incorporated the authenticator functionality into the main program, or given the authenticator away for free.

 

This makes no sense...Why should they give out the authenticators for free? Dumb people are not entitled to extra equipment to keep their shit safe. If someone thinks he might get keylogged then he ought to buy extra protection, aside from the one already in place.

P.S: Blizzard and other companies actually give free authenticator software to anyone with a smarthphone.

Originally posted by Kaerigan

Originally posted by Xiaoki

The Authenticator it to try and "fix stupid". 9 times out of 10 when someone gets hacked it is because they went to a bad website. But people never want to admit they clicked on a shady link in an e-mail or went to a bad website.

And then there are people like me. I've got separate passwords for my Battle.net account and the email it is tied to. My account got locked for "suspicious activity". I changed both passwords and even bought a new computer (not because of that incident, of course, it was just time to upgrade). Now my account is locked again. And NO, I have honestly not attempted logging on to any totallylegitbattlenetfreegold.com or something retarded like that. I haven't shared my passwords with ANYONE.

This is the only one of my hundreds of accounts on various websites that has been compromised.

It's not like I have any proof but sometimes I wonder what the fuck Blizzard is up to.

sometimes wonder if they didnt ought to make  everyone take phishing recognition courses, of course a lot of it is common sense, but how often must blizzard have to deal with this kind of thing, along with other online services etc, i doubt whether its relegated to just online gaming, truth of the matter is, phishing among other online hazards, is a fact of life, companies like Blizzard have tried to 'idiot proof' things a bit by introducing authenticators, they can't however, protect other peoples email accounts, in this increasingly internet dependant world we live in, we have to protect ourselves, relying on others to clean up our own messes every 5 minutes is unrealistic, time to become educated in the dangers this environment contains. The information is out there, chances are your place of work even has cbt's on them, i'd be surprised if schools didnt teach this kind of thing also.