Funny how time flies when you're just playing the game and not paying attention to your blog.
I could bother you with the latest and greatest of patch 3.2 which has been available to us for a while now but other than the mount changes I can honestly say I didn't take a closer look yet. For some reason securing logistics to get all my characters mounted up as far as they can go took a little longer than anticipated.
Nonetheless there is a little something I encountered that you might want to take care of before it costs you your valuable wow account.
A recent vulnerability in flash player which is commonly installed on most PCs means that the flash player of certain versions have become somewhat prone to become carriers of key loggers.
I am not going to bother you with details, but since I saw some problems related to it on a corporate level I'd think and go ahead and issue a warning to my 4 readers (although those might just've died in the chairs they are sitting in, remind me to poke them with a stick later):
Go update your flash player at adobe.com or go read more about it by following this link here: Link
Be aware that it will try to install the google toolbar as well so if you don't want that don't forget to uncheck the related checkbox.
Uninstalling flash isn't really an option since it's used by quite a few websites and they will happily tell you that you need a flash plugin when you don't have one.
Normally I leave security in the hands of the individual people but this one has such a high chance of being abused by various crackers (this is not a racial slur, go look it up if you disagree) to break into your wow account that I decided to break my usual stoic silence and give you fair warning.
There's been a few reports here and there for this vulnerability but since this one can actually be abused to drop a keylogger in your system my opinion is that you can never repeat it enough.
It won't make you cracker-proof but at least you eliminate one more risk.
Back with something more wow-like soon... don't worry.
Showing posts with label security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label security. Show all posts
Friday, August 7, 2009
Friday, June 27, 2008
Blizzard Authenticator
I am sure this has been posted all over the blogosphere by now but since I haven't been able to do my regular rounds to see what people are posting about I present you with some generic Blizzard type news directly from the mouth of big blue:
Blizzard Authenticator
And there we have it: The blizzard Authenticator. Essentially a means to add a little weight to your keychain by giving you a little device that can spout out unique numbers used to authenticate your wow credentials.
Basically your wow account gets tied to the authenticator which generates a random number sequence every so often. This number sequence is also kept on a blizzard server. When you log in you type in your username and password and then provide the number on the Authenticator and voila... you can play wow.
The advantage is obviously that if your account gets hacked somehow the hacker will not have the code on the authenticator and as a result not be able to rob you and your guild half blind.
The authenticator will be available from the blizzard stores but I wouldn't be surprised if they start shipping it out with the next expansion or some form of battle chest in the future.
If you don't have a tendency to lose keys and generally don't spell doom for various USB devices and if you like the thought of a little extra securit then perhaps the authenticator is for you.
You can take it with you anywhere you want so there's no real restriction in using it other than that it might be a problem for people who share accounts regularly.
Overall this is a very sound approach to providing a little extra security for their customers and I am sure it will prove to be very succesful provided there are no hidden bugs.
The little buggar will cost 6.50$ and since euro / dollar conversion charts only apply to 'normal' people I am fairly certain it'll be 6.50 euros for europeans once it's made available.
I myself will most likely get one once they've been out for a while (avoiding the wave of potential start-up problems) since 6.50 isn't a large premium to safeguard a wow account that is worth at least 100 times that much (in purely sentimental value of course...).
Make of it what you will, I for one am very happy with blizzard taking security of their customer's account serious (that or they're just trying to cut customer support cost).
Blizzard Authenticator
And there we have it: The blizzard Authenticator. Essentially a means to add a little weight to your keychain by giving you a little device that can spout out unique numbers used to authenticate your wow credentials.
Basically your wow account gets tied to the authenticator which generates a random number sequence every so often. This number sequence is also kept on a blizzard server. When you log in you type in your username and password and then provide the number on the Authenticator and voila... you can play wow.
The advantage is obviously that if your account gets hacked somehow the hacker will not have the code on the authenticator and as a result not be able to rob you and your guild half blind.
The authenticator will be available from the blizzard stores but I wouldn't be surprised if they start shipping it out with the next expansion or some form of battle chest in the future.
If you don't have a tendency to lose keys and generally don't spell doom for various USB devices and if you like the thought of a little extra securit then perhaps the authenticator is for you.
You can take it with you anywhere you want so there's no real restriction in using it other than that it might be a problem for people who share accounts regularly.
Overall this is a very sound approach to providing a little extra security for their customers and I am sure it will prove to be very succesful provided there are no hidden bugs.
The little buggar will cost 6.50$ and since euro / dollar conversion charts only apply to 'normal' people I am fairly certain it'll be 6.50 euros for europeans once it's made available.
I myself will most likely get one once they've been out for a while (avoiding the wave of potential start-up problems) since 6.50 isn't a large premium to safeguard a wow account that is worth at least 100 times that much (in purely sentimental value of course...).
Make of it what you will, I for one am very happy with blizzard taking security of their customer's account serious (that or they're just trying to cut customer support cost).
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