Bad news for any gamers that play Blizzard games, it turns out that battle.net has been hacked and that some data has been compromised. Luckily Blizzard issued as statement as quickly as possible and was extremely honest in what data had been compromised.
For the full article on the issue then check out: http://battle.net/support/article/6327 or for a summary of what was taken and what actions you should take then read on.
I would highly recommend changing any passwords into your battle.net account as soon as possible, you can do this online on the battle.net website. As for the actual data that could of been taken or seen then have a look at the list below.
- Email addresses
- Answers to secret security questions
- Cryptographically scrambled versions of passwords
- Information associated with the Mobile Authenticator
- Information associated with the Dial-in Authenticator
- Information associated with Phone Lock, a security system associated with Taiwan accounts only
That is quite a sensitive collection of data, but the good thing is that all of this data can be changed on the battle.net website, so do it right away. Another thing to do is to make sure that no other big online accounts use the same passwords as battle.net. One of the most common ways for people to get into accounts is to acquire passwords from insecure websites then use the same passwords on stronger websites or accounts, so make sure you stay safe and change them.
Here is the statement from Mike Morhaime.
Even when you are in the business of fun, not every week ends up being fun. This week, our security team found an unauthorized and illegal access into our internal network here at Blizzard. We quickly took steps to close off this access and began working with law enforcement and security experts to investigate what happened.
At this time, we’ve found no evidence that financial information such as credit cards, billing addresses, or real names were compromised. Our investigation is ongoing, but so far nothing suggests that these pieces of information have been accessed.
Some data was illegally accessed, including a list of email addresses for global Battle.net users, outside of China. For players on North American servers (which generally includes players from North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia) the answer to the personal security question, and information relating to Mobile and Dial-In Authenticators were also accessed. Based on what we currently know, this information alone is NOT enough for anyone to gain access to Battle.net accounts.
We also know that cryptographically scrambled versions of Battle.net passwords (not actual passwords) for players on North American servers were taken. We use Secure Remote Password protocol (SRP) to protect these passwords, which is designed to make it extremely difficult to extract the actual password, and also means that each password would have to be deciphered individually. As a precaution, however, we recommend that players on North American servers change their password. Please click this link to change your password. Moreover, if you have used the same or similar passwords for other purposes, you may want to consider changing those passwords as well.
In the coming days, we’ll be prompting players on North American servers to change their secret questions and answers through an automated process. Additionally, we’ll prompt mobile authenticator users to update their authenticator software. As a reminder, phishing emails will ask you for password or login information. Blizzard Entertainment emails will never ask for your password. We deeply regret the inconvenience to all of you and understand you may have questions. Please find additional information here.
We take the security of your personal information very seriously, and we are truly sorry that this has happened.
Sincerely,
Mike Morhaime
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