Diablo III developer Blizzard has addressed the speculation that a hack is behind some unusual activity which has been reported on a number of its gaming network player’s accounts – including loss of rewards and unauthorised access to profiles and chat features.
Blizzard and the Battle.net forum have both spoken out about the Diablo III hack which seems to have bypassed an Authenticator – an optional one-use password put in place to confirm the correct registered Windows PC users are the only people accessing their own accounts. Seeming to pass the buck, a Battle.net moderator has said that “despite the claims and theories being made, we have yet to find any situations in which a person’s account was not compromised through traditional means of someone else logging into their account through the use of their password” – however he does suggest that all is being done to find the true root of the security breach, which essentially reads as “it’s not our fault – but we’ll humour you”.
The Diablo III developer itself has issued its own statement offering to roll-back player’s history to before their gold and gaming valuables went missing and little gaming progress is believed to be lost during this procedure. Fortunately at this time no “real” money passes hands in the world of Diablo III, but with this concept looming in the near future this hack proves worrying.
And just like Battle.net, Blizzard suggests that its security measures are strong, the Authenticator is fail proof and that “the release of a new game – such as a World of Warcraft expansion – will result in an increase in reports of individual account compromises, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing now with Diablo III.”
“We know how frustrating it can be to become the victim of account theft, and as always, we’re dedicated to doing everything we can to help our players keep their Battle.net accounts safe and we appreciate everyone who’s doing their part to help protect their accounts as well.”
Blizzard does offer some tips for protecting accounts which can be found Here and the Gadget Helpline will continue to follow this story.
Let us know your thoughts on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.