(Author’s Note: News article published May 23 2012 at P2R)
Statement directs users to the developer’s account protection services
Blizzard has released a statement on the official Diablo III forums regarding the recent reports of accounts being hacked.
In response to the increasing reports of users logging in only to discover all their loot and gold missing, the developer said, “We’d like to address the recent reports that suggested Battle.net and Diablo III may have been compromised. Historically, the release of a new game – such as World of Warcraft expansion – will result in an increase in reports of individual account compromises, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing now with Diablo III. We know how frustrating it can be to become the victim of account theft, and as always, we’re dedicated to doing everything we can to help our players keep their Battle.net accounts safe – and we appreciated everyone who’s doing their part to help protect their accounts as well.”
The developer also took the opportunity to announce a new service called Battle.net SMS Protect, which allows players to use text-enabled cell phones to unlock a locked Battle.net account, recover an account name, approve a password reset, or even remove a lost Authenticator.
While the statement informs gamers what they can do to prevent being hacked, Blizzard has not stated the nature of these hacking incidents, how it is being done, or when people can expect this issue to be resolved. Neither did the developer address the complaints of some consumers who claimed to already have an Authenticator yet were still victims of this, as yet unknown, hack or exploit.
The allegations of hacking is the latest issue in a line of problems for the action RPG, including log-in problems at launch and the delayed release of the real-auction money house, leading up to some fan frustration, while more issues could be looming over the horizon for Diablo III.
