What is the point of players having an authenticator when it does not prevent accounts from getting hacked? One of my officers (never bought gold) got hacked and guild bank was cleared out… any advice to prevent this in the future? Also, will blizz restore everything stolen?
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How did he get “hacked”? You need to authenticate any login from a new device via the code the authenticator provides. So he would have had to give the code to someone for them to be able to log into his account. Did he perhaps share his account with someone for some reason?
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Dont belive the officer, he is lying about something there
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Your officer is either lying or his IQ has just 1 digit in it.
Also, buying gold has nothing to do with account getting hacked.
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Thank you all for responding <3 This lad is a good person at heart and if you guys knew him you would understand that he’s the last person that would exploit wow in anyway hehe. He has never shared his account with anyone nor done any sus activity in the game. So is there really no way to hack an account that uses authenticator?
I mean, the whole point of 2FA is that this 2nd step can be done only by person himself. When someone logs into his account - the app on HIS phone generates a code. Then he either tap “approve” button in the app or manually type this freshly generated code into the login page.
There are 3 ways to hack an acc with 2FA:
- To not only have the login info for the account, but also a phone of account owner himself.
- To not only have the login info for the account, but also a PC where this acc was logged in before.
- To not only have the login info for the account, but also to trick person into a change of a phone number in account/authenticator info (implying you have to have a direct talk with acc owner)
Or well…to compromise the app itself but then it would’ve been the mass issue and hysteria
Holy cow! Blizz took fast action and restored everything…ty blizz <3
yeah, hopefully he can raid with us today…i am just so happy and impressed at how fast blizz was with this.
yeah right,between millions of people your officer got really bad luck man!
this authenticathor is really useless! damn
the bad part is the hacker actually got his authenticator trough hostage situation !
i think everyone should unninstall the authenticator of so useless it is!
Yeah most likely a phishing attack where he filled out his authenticator generated number into a site pretending to be a wow forum or blizzard support or some such. Glad you got your gbank restored!
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I got hacked once in 2012 and Blizzard effectively forced me to get an authenticator after changing my accounts email address to a new one. Since authenticator I have not been hacked. Authenticators work, but they are not 100% idiot proof.
Not using an Authenticator these days is just mental.
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Hacking, whatever…just give me the damn 4 bonus inventory space 
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So you can prove that you’re really a Troll and not a Gnome.
Authenticators suck. I never used the wow one but if it’s similar to the runescape one then no thanks. After a long break and a new phone it was a lot of trouble trying to play runescape again.
I don’t get hacked, authenticator is not necessary to prevent that. If you’re stupid enough to get keylogged or phished then you’re probably stupid enough to get your information stolen even with an authenticator.
*my 2 cents no offense at anybody in particular here before I get mass reported again for calling somebody stupid
edit: to answer OP, 4 extra bag slots is the point I guess?
Said everyone until they got hacked, I went years (the entire history of the internet from the 90s to 2012) without getting hacked and my email/password was leaked in a data breach without my knowing. Nobody keylogged my computer. Hackers these days can get into anything, having a 2nd layer of defense is the bare minimum.
Blizzard doesn’t even ask you for the authenticator if it recognises your computer, I haven’t had to type it in for literally years. The only people who need the code are those trying to get into my account, and even in the event they did somehow get my password they would get nowhere.
The only people who are stupid are those arrogant enough to think that they can’t get hacked.
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WoW accounts cannot be “hacked”. If you decide to install malware on your computer and lose your gold that way, there is nothing Blizzard can do about it and an authenticator will not prevent it. Stupid User Error can only be prevented by educating the person using the computer.
Read this again:
They can indeed get hacked. Google the definition of the word “hack/hacked”.
Pretty sure no one actively decides to install malware.
This is probably true. I don’t remember the first and only time my account got hacked (pre authenticator).
Account and all gear was restored, but not the gold. TBC/WOTLK many years ago.
Sure it will. If you pick the option to always use Authenticator upon login.
Granted a pro hacker, will be able to hack most accounts, if they truly want to
They can do pretty much whatever they want. But hard to say what their general policy is on the matter
Wrong. You still cannot “hack” a blizzard battle.net account. Or if you can, maybe you can show me a breach of blizzards databases where username/password combos were actually hacked?
What you can do, however, is compromise the whole computer if the user is dumb enough to install a RAT or some other nice piece of software. But this is not “WoW account hacking”, it is taking over the whole computer. If you were actually able to “hack” battle.net accounts, you would be able to do it without ever touching the PC which plays the account.