Currently, emails are going out to random World of Warcraft players, stating they have been selected to participate in the Alpha test for the WoW expansion: Cataclysm. If you are one of the recipients of this, you are not a lucky winner. You are a target of a scam.
The email is convincing, and appears to be from a genuine Blizzard address. It appears to be related to WoW, even using artwork from it, to make a convincing Cataclysm logo. The language used is the same wording Blizzard has used in the past. Links even go to past Blizzard beta tests, so they will seem to be legitimate at first.
However, the link that is used to download the fake expansion alpha test is not a Blizzard site. Instead, it will download a .rar file that will be used to keep track of what keys are pressed when entering a password, and will send this information to the scammers. They will then use this information to log into the player's account, change the password, sell the gear, and transfer the gold to another account.
Do not be fooled by this email. Blizzard never sends random people emails to participate in game testing. Further, Cataclysm has not been announced as an expansion for WoW. The expansion will be announced officially (probably at Blizzcon next month) before any testing begins.
For added security, the Blizzard Authenticator is the best tool. Even if someone did get the player's password, unless they had the code from the authenticator, which changes every minute or so, they could not log in. It is a highly recommended tool to keep out those pesky gold farmers.
Comments
These scams unfortunately make always few f00ls to fall and hackers get new account to wreak havoc on realms.
Hackers will stay in business untill we create solution to take bread from their very hands and show them that sorry, we don't fall to your sweet lies.
I wish that everyone would spread this and inform their friends that what real aim of sender of these emails really is.
ive seen something on youtube which links to a wow-like site, i do suspect scam but the website appears to be correctly spelled (and it is a beta you "suscribe" to), this is surely a scam, am i right?
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