Spam News

Phishing spam targets World of Warcraft gamers

Monday, August 24, 2009

Piggybacking on recent buzz about the hugely successful World of Warcraft (WoW) massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG), scammers have launched phishing spam attacks attempting to trick gamers into giving up their WoW account information.

Web security researchers at Sophos have spotted phishing spam that disguises itself as an official offer from Blizzard Entertainment, the company that makes WoW and this past weekend held its annual BlizzCon gamer conference.

The spam email claims to offer a free trial of new WoW mounts (fantastical beasts players in the game can ride). Recipients who want the phony free trial are directed to click a link that spoofs the WoW website and asks users to use their login name and password to gain access to the new mounts.

"Naturally, your WoW game account will be stolen once this confidential information has been submitted," Sophos warned in a blog post. "As the online gaming community grows, we anticipate such phishing scams targeting the MMORPG to continue to proliferate."

Scammers have targeted WoW gamers with similar spam in the past. Blizzard Entertainment, which just released details of the newest expansion to the game, called World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, warns users on its website about threats from Trojan malware.