Blizzard giving serious consideration to mandatory authenticators

[Poyzon]

Blizzard giving serious consideration to mandatory authenticators

WoW.com has learned through trusted sources close to the situation that Blizzard is giving serious consideration to making authenticators mandatory on all accounts. According to our sources, while this policy has not been implemented yet and the details are not finalized, it is a virtually forgone conclusion that it will happen.

This response is a direct effort to stop the massive number of compromised accounts by gold sellers and keyloggers. The seriousness of the situation with compromised accounts has reached such a level that wait times for item and character restoration are entirely unacceptable, even to Blizzard executives. Blizzard has taken other internal measures to deal with long wait times of people in account restoration queues, and we'll be covering those measures tomorrow.

However, with the inclusion of mandatory authenticators, this should solve a major problem for Blizzard's support and account administration teams.

The number of compromised accounts under the mandatory authenticator plan should plummet, if not be virtually eliminated, and players should be able to enjoy a much more secure gaming experience. While some might have a hard time with the transition, Blizzard can provide excellent support in getting all of their 11.5 million players up to speed. Indeed, we have already seen some incentive programs appear; the price of authenticators has dropped recently thanks to free shipping, and we are now rewarded with an in-game pet for having an authenticator attached to our accounts.

A few months ago we postulated such an idea as one of our Breakfast Topics. In Why Blizzard should make authenticators mandatory, player reaction was mixed. Some saw it as a great opportunity to eliminate compromised accounts, others thought it would be an unnecessary money grabbing scheme by Blizzard.

Perhaps the best option put forth by commenters on WoW.com was to make the authenticators mandatory with Cataclysm. Many people agreed with this, and it will be interesting to see how Blizzard rolls out their mandatory authenticator system.

On the down side to this plan is a serious logistics problem, in that Blizzard can barely keep authenticators in stock now. They have yet to prove that they have the capacity to distribute them to millions of additional players. We are currently investigating this issue and will report back once we have more information to share.

We do not know if authenticators will be mandatory on just WoW accounts or on any Battle.net account.

Source: WoW.com

Updated: Follow-up post.

[ebony]

this is great compromised accounts would be gone spaming would be gone we all be very happy and maybe then we would get support from blizzard more then waiting hours for somethink so silly. If players can not keep there acconts safe then make them do it,

I think though if your accont gets compromised once then u sould be made to get authenticator before they can relog into wow and get itams back

New players would find it hard they have to wait before they can play there new game, infact it could kill the new players income

[Poyzon]

And a follow up to that article...


Account Administration told not to restore hacked characters

In a stunning revelation from a veteran account administrator at Blizzard, WoW.com has learned that account administrators are being told by Blizzard managers not to restore people's characters and items after their account has been ransacked by gold sellers and keyloggers. Instead, account administrators are being told to give people a "care package" and get them to accept the package in lieu of total account restoration.

If the player does not accept this care package, they are then forced to go into a character restoration queue that is consistently several days to weeks long. According to sources familiar with the situation, this "care package policy" has been implemented in order to lighten the work load of those Blizzard employees who perform account restorations. Similar policies have existed at other times account compromises have been high, such as during the transition from Vanilla WoW to The Burning Crusade.

This care package being offered consists of the following:

• 2,500 gold
• 2 Emblems of Frost
• 10 Emblems of Triumph for every day the players has had to wait to receive the care package

If the player accepts the care package, their restoration case is considered closed and no additional items or gold will be restored on the account that were lost because of the security compromise.

WoW.com believes that this practice, while potentially making some sense logistically, stands firmly against the best interest of the players. Sources that we have spoken with tell us most account administrators do not agree with this policy, however their hands are tied due to Blizzard management (it is their job, after all, and they have to do as they're told).

WoW.com believes Blizzard can do a better job at solving long restoration queue times without placing player's hard work as a secondary concern. Instead of offering players a care package, Blizzard can employ more staff, and as we will discuss in a later post, train those staff in better ways to prevent account compromises and exploitation. The serious consideration given to mandatory authenticators is also part of this solution.

Source: WoW.com

[Tim]

Great story! Blizzard Account Administration told not to restore hacked characters | Multiboxing.com - Multiboxing in World of Warcraft and more!

[xunil76]

they should totally make it mandatory with Cataclysm. they could just offer at least 2 versions of Cataclysm, one version without the authenticator (for those that already have one or are using the mobile app version) and one with an authenticator included (for $6.50 more than the regular version, for those that don't already have one, or want an extra one).....but regardless of which version you buy, it would still be required that you have an authenticator attached to your account in order to play Cataclysm content, so as to keep people from just buying the normal version and not using the authenticator still.

honestly, i don't know why anyone would NOT want to use the authenticator, especially if they've invested so much time into building up their characters.....it just makes sense to secure your account, and by doing so, freeing up Blizz adminstrators to handle other problems that we currently have to wait untold hours for.

and to help inspire more people to get an authenticator sooner, they should give out extra freebies for having an authenticator attached to your account, based on how long you have been using one. for instance, they already give you the free core hound pup pet for having one....but if you keep it associated with your account the entire time from now until they make them mandatory, they could give you a special mount, or extra free pets, or any number of extra in-game items (or maybe even free days of gametime) to help push people to get them ASAP, instead of waiting until they are mandatory and they don't have enough to go around.

and for those people who just don't want to spend the money for a hardware authenticator, but have a compatible mobile phone for the mobile app version, there's no real excuse....just get it, already. signing in with an authenticator doesn't take enough extra time to make me want to not use one, my account integrity is so much more important to me.....

[Nghtmr9999]

Yup, I have had and will continue to use Authenticators for my b.net accounts. Just yesterday I had a scare when I did a full scan of my computer. It reported I had two generic Trojans on my computer. I couldn't remove them, but the name just sounded so familiar to me: myf\y\px\appletx.class. So after sleeping on it (It was getting near 1 AM at the time), I managed to track the Trojan down to my Java folder.

So after scanning the folders I eventually came across the right one. I scanned the file to make doubly sure it was corrupted, and it was. It was immediately deleted.

Just a lesson,Trojans are out there and they will kick your butt.

Also, don't use the same PW for pretty much everything. It seems people develop the bad habit of doing that. I now have a password keeper on my iPhone, and everything I use has a randomly-generated 10 character aLPha-numeric password.

[Paul1337noob]

if there gunna charge for them still then screw that

[TheMuffinMan]

Originally Posted by Paul1337noob

if there gunna charge for them still then screw that

First, even if they force you to buy one, 6$ ain't that bad... or if you have one of the bajillion supported smart phones that have the Authenticator App you don't even need to pay for it.

Second, the general consensus is if they do this they will give our free authenticators with purchase of Cataclysm.

[Paul1337noob]

if there gunna hand em out free then sure im down for that, but the only reason im able to play wow is because i dont waste my money on other stuff like alchohal on a weekend apart from that im only a student with a part time job, and paying out for wow as it is a push, with the cost of wow everytime you start a new account ontop of monthly fees, and i have no need for a 'smart phone' im all for technology like but ive got a laptop that goes with me on the move, i have no other need for a phone then to make phonecalls.

although i didnt realise that they have removed the shipping price on them, they were originally charging like an extra $10 on shipping to EU which was my main issue

[Tim]

Yea I heard it already that they are being shipped in the Cataclysm boxes.