It’s been a while since the last big hacking scandal hit a high-profile gaming network, but it seems we have another as multiple reports have surfaced regarding a possible threat to Diablo III online players many of which are believed to have lost gold and stored items since an outage last week.
Diablo III developer Blizzard unexpectedly pulled the plug on the Windows PC game’s server five days ago without explanation and shortly after the dark fantasy role-playing game’s much-anticipated release on May the 15th. Part of a brief statement delivered by Blizzard read “We are in the process of performing an emergency maintenance for Diablo III servers in the Americas to resolve several issues that are currently impacting the game” – no suggestion of a breach to the gaming Diablo III network known as Battle.net.
It would appear that since this “maintenance” saw the server go down a number of gamers have found their rewards stash completely emptied and seemingly robbed – including valuable gaming gold with can be used to auction for weapons and essentials.
If further proof was needed that something illicit had taken place a Diablo III player and staffer for Eurogamer found his account being used by someone other than himself. Blizzard has been working to reset online player’s characters to “pre-hack” state meaning all will be returned to order. But this is still a growing threat which was able to bypass Blizzard’s security Authenticator – worrying allowing hackers to take control of accounts undetected.
The Gadget Helpline will be following this story and if you’re a Diablo III gamer and have been troubled by unusual activity on your account let us know on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.