Safe to take authenticator off?

[tylen]

My WoW account was hacked after I put the authenticator on my brother's account. I then put it back on mine after wards but the hacker left a free month. Anyways Blizz didn't remove the month so I played, and they now locked my account a few weeks later saying I need to send them $15 in the mail. Is it safe to take the authenticator off to use for my brother's because I only use my Bnet account for SC2. Is this alright? (Plus it is a hassle)

[Iyarashii]

Other then running the risk of getting hacked yes it is alright.

[tylen]

who the hell would hack an SC2 account? A south korean?

[Sunshine]

You can still have your WoW account hacked again, unless it's locked. Also, you probably need to pay for that month, or else they'll keep asking for it / demanding it.

Also, assuming both accounts (yours and your brother's) are in the same place (e.g., you're not sending the authenticator across the country or something), you can put the same authenticator on both accounts, you know.

[Idontlikeyou]

Also, assuming both accounts (yours and your brother's) are in the same place (e.g., you're not sending the authenticator across the country or something), you can put the same authenticator on both accounts, you know.

You can only attach one authenticator to one account now. This was done a few months ago. People that have one authenticator attached to multiple accounts before the change, are allowed to have this setup, but anyone attaching authenticators now, must have a unique authenticator per account.

Source: http://us.blizzard.com/support/artic...660&rhtml=true

Can I apply my Battle.net Authenticator to more than one account?
Battle.net authenticators can now only be associated with one Battle.net account at a time. Please keep in mind that a single Authenticator will provide secure access to all of the World of Warcraft accounts associated with an individual Battle.net account.

I also believe in order to have the account reactivated you must either pay using a time card, or sending in a money order. Most times hackers wont legitimately pay for an account to reactivate it. So no worries of them using a stolen CC to reactivate it. Though you run the risk that your account info will land in the wrong hands of someone willing to do just that.

Is it safe? It depends on the nature of your compromise. Most times, no.

[Sunshine]

You can only attach one authenticator to one account now. This was done a few months ago. People that have one authenticator attached to multiple accounts before the change, are allowed to have this setup, but anyone attaching authenticators now, must have a unique authenticator per account.

That sucks. I wonder if they had hackers putting one authenticator on all the accounts they hacked, or something. Cheap way to keep the owner and other hackers out, I guess. At least this way, if they want to use the authenticator on multiple accounts, they need to actually pay for them... or just run a program.

I also believe in order to have the account reactivated you must either pay using a time card, or sending in a money order. Most times hackers wont legitimately pay for an account to reactivate it. So no worries of them using a stolen CC to reactivate it. Though you run the risk that your account info will land in the wrong hands of someone willing to do just that.

Weirdly, they actually will (and it sounds like it was the case originally here?). Although in this case, since it was previously hacked, Blizzard might be careful about the payment.


Edit: Also, since I thought of this while responding, there are programs that you can run on your computer which generate authenticator codes. It's not as secure, since any program sitting on your computer (virus, keylogger, whatever) could probably access that data as well, but it's likely more secure than no authenticator.

Be careful where you get the program, because it would be easy for them to include a keylogger. This one seems valid, but use at your own risk. I don't have any experience with this particular one, so I'm not taking responsibility if it does bad things. http://code.google.com/p/winauth/

[frostyflakes]

Be careful where you get the program, because it would be easy for them to include a keylogger. This one seems valid, but use at your own risk. I don't have any experience with this particular one, so I'm not taking responsibility if it does bad things. code.google.com/p/winauth

I'm the author so no, obviously, it doesn't do bad things. The source code is up there so you can examine it and build it yourself. Alternatively, if you are happy with the binaries, just make sure you only get them from code.google.com. I am the only one who builds them.

-c.

[Sunshine]

I'm the author so no, obviously, it doesn't do bad things. The source code is up there so you can examine it and build it yourself. Alternatively, if you are happy with the binaries, just make sure you only get them from code.google.com. I am the only one who builds them.

-c.

Good to know. Thanks!

[zaoly]

Why would blizzard ask you to mail 15 dollars?? Sounds fishy to me

[caapi]

Why would blizzard ask you to mail 15 dollars?? Sounds fishy to me

most likely the month the "hacker" put on the account was from credit card fraud (or paypal or number of other ways)

once it's found out that it's fraud then the charge gets reversed and blizz is out $15.

blizz won't take the chance of you paying them with another stolen CC or other fraudulent method, so the only thing left is cash/money order through snail mail.