WoW Discussion

With the recent spurt of account hackings and such, I've decided to open up a thread for people to post various safety tips to keep your accounts safe.
(This is NOT a thread to complaint about your account getting hacked, this is a thread with tips to prevent your account from getting hacked.)

Here's a few that I can think of:
• Change your password regularly. Don't keep the same password around, and change it on a somewhat regular basis.
• Keep up-to-date Anti-Virus and anti-spyware programs. My vouch is on AVG Free Edition and Ad-Aware. Everybody has their preferences, and those are mine.
• Avoid Porn sites. God only knows what these can put on your computer. So just be safe and stay away from them.
• Scan addons for WoW with an anti-virus after downloading and after you've installed it. Also, scan the entire computer as well, just to be on the safe side.
• Don't give your login information to guildies/friends - Lord knows where in the wide world of web browsing they have been visiting.
• Ensure that your password is at least ten characters long, with a mixture of letters and numbers. It won't protect you from keyloggers, but you'd be amazed how many people lose their accounts to stupidity as well, i.e. using their husband's first name as their password.
• Regardless of the browser you choose (not stepping into the IE vs. Firefox debate here), block pop-ups, banner ads, and anything else that you don't absolutely need.
• Consider installing a firewall or security suite such as ZoneAlarm (just one option) that warns you of any program on your system that's attempting to log your keystrokes and allows you to deny it from doing so. If you do get a keylogger on your system, that should let you stop it in its tracks and remove it before it steals your account information, or your credit card information.
• Reinstall your OS frequently. It clears up all the junk that you don't need laying around and gets rid of just about any crap you have accumulated from all of your.....downloads.
• Use image backup software. Backup your drive(s) weekly.
• Only use MS Internet Explorer for those very important and secure sites that don't allow the use of Firefox
• Use Firefox and have the 'NoScript' add-on installed
• create a virtual machine instance, install only a browser on that instance and only use it for browsing. You can google "free virtual machine" for free virtual machine software...
• If you can afford it, I'd get two computers and have one dedicated to games. The other one can browse and anything else. The game machine's internet browsers are all blocked via Zonealarm or whatever firewall software you're using. I also recommend that you get a router with a firewall instead of connecting your computer directly to the DSL/Cable modem.
• make sure your Account name is different from your main, or any other character's name. I'm sure a lot of people setting up their first account may have thought they were choosing their character name and ended up choosing the same name for their first character. This makes it easier for hackers to try to brute force crack thru your passwords if they think they know your account name.

These are just a few things that I can think of. If people know of unruly sites and the works, and could post 'em that'd be great as well. Also, if someone has a list of trustworthy and untrustworthy addon sites, that'd also help.

If the Mods could sticky this, it might help as well.

These are good tips.

Stickied.

Thanks for your reply!
and if possible, post your opinions here and share with us.

because i have lost my account

Proud to say i have never been hacked or had an account stolen in my years of playing online games and my 8 months of playing WoW. Those tips you have posted are great for those who are new to the online world and need tips to keep their Accs safe. For those online vetrans though those tips should be hard wired into your memory banks because you have probably lost an acc or two over silly little mistakes.

Great post dude keep em coming.

Originally Posted by heroknight FIGHT OVER CLOTHES: Spend 100+ hours of your life intermittently arguing on Vent with 12 year olds about who deserves that purple dress.

Originally Posted by GuTzBerzerk The bots are slowly but surely taking over the world, first by the internet then they will emerge from the computers and suck off our faces and drink our brains through bendy straws!

I've been playing online games for 10+ years now and have never had my accounts hacked or stolen, must be my ultra-elite passwords ^.^

Desecrator is a pro-gamer!

I made a club at my highschool called LGU (Leet Gamers United)
and we play WoW and many other games like wc3 tft, halo, and cod2
we hold tournaments and the such too, but I swear everyone here sucks, I pwn them all...

Where have all the good gamers gone? I need a challenge in wc3 ppl...

Never been hacked, been banned though, Runescape used a modizzle to play for me while im gone.

You played runescape and used bots? lol.

What bots did you use?

I don't remember it was like 2 summers ago, but it killed mobs for me while I wasn't there.