(OT) How to stop all this spam WoW mail?

[N49ATV]

I cant count the junk mail I get from fishers trying to get WoW info, Aon Info, and other online games. I know its just Fishing emails, that are not coming from blizzard themselves. Cause well I have never played any of these games. Hell I have gotten 7 today alone about wow. From [email protected], to [email protected]. and other capital, all smalls, all caps versions. I get tons a day. Blizzard is a daily one, Aon, etc is a every few days. Anyway to truely stop this crap?

Thanks Everyone

 

[Wulf2k]

Who do you have your email through, and what email client do you use?

 

[RedDaTeef]

I think he uses Fishnet.com...

 

[Nastia Cross]

I get several of these emails a day (to my junk inbox most of the time) and I use GMAIL.

 

[Wulf2k]

Add those addresses to a blacklist / junk list?

 

[Hera - Siege]

You're essentially screwed. You're on the spammers email list. You'll always get them.

The only way to stop it is to NOT have friends/etc add you to address books or even have your email address on their computer.

Most viruses these days are email address farming programs. They take all addresses from address books/emails/etc and send them to the spammers. Once you're on the list it's impossible to get off.

Only way to really stop it is to switch emails...

 

[Critical Gaming]

Kind of a funny story...

I haven't used my WoW account in a loooong time. At least a year.

Well, one morning about three weeks ago, I wake up and check my e-mail. There I see three e-mails from blizzard.

1. 2:18AM - Your password has been changed
2. 2:43AM - Your account has been activated
3. 4:04AM - Your account has been banned for trying to sell gold for real life $


I e-mailed blizzard and said I sure as hell haven't answered a phishing e-mail, and I haven't played for roughly a year, and now I can't come back because my account was obviously hacked.

About 2 weeks later I get a reply saying they're forwarding the case to a specialist, and that I NEED NOT make multiple petitions about this. I haven't heard anything since.

But after this happened, I've been getting like 9 messages a day from those same e-mail addresses.

Prior to getting banned, I never got hit with phishing e-mails. After my account was banned, I started getting like 9 a day.

I DID NOT ANSWER A PHISHING EMAIL, NOR HAVE I EVER TYPED MY ACCOUNT INFORMATION INTO ANYTHING FOR THE PAST YEAR.

 

[Picus at the office]

It's funny that the email I used with this Stratics account is the only one I get WoW spam on and I have only ever used it here. IMO stratics is the crucial link to my personal spam issues.

 

[Wulf2k]

Well, one morning about three weeks ago, I wake up and check my e-mail. There I see three e-mails from blizzard.

1. 2:18AM - Your password has been changed
2. 2:43AM - Your account has been activated
3. 4:04AM - Your account has been banned for trying to sell gold for real life $

I get the same spam, it doesn't necessarily mean your account is hacked.

If those emails included any links at all, it was probably just more spam trying to look legit. Go to battle.net, or wherever you can log in, and try. See if your old password still works.

Don't go there through any links in emails.

 

[Critical Gaming]

I did a reset password query right after I read those emails, logged into my battle.net account, and saw right next to WoW:WOTL "BANNED" In big red letters!

 

[Wulf2k]

Damn, that's too bad.

Well, I've heard good things about Blizzard restoring accounts and characters and whatnot. Was the password something that would have been bruteforced pretty easily? Or a common one you may have used with insecure websites, linking the email on the account?

 

[Critical Gaming]

The account was only ever accessed by me. The password was the same one I use for lots of other things, so there is a possibility it was done that way.

 

[N49ATV]

I remember vortex saying he got one of these emails, and traced it back to a guys Hotmail account, and sent him a nice present. But thats all it is, someone on facebook, bulk sending emails to people who play one online game, and maybe play another. So send out 1000 emails, and get access to 2 accounts. Free money really.

I was using my telus webmail client, and then outlook, im now on windows live mail. (new outlook express), since im not paying $170 to get outlook added to my office.

 

[Wulf2k]

I remember vortex saying he got one of these emails, and traced it back to a guys Hotmail account, and sent him a nice present.

Poor guy, he gets his hotmail hacked and then Vortex sends him stuff too.

Just can't catch a break...

As for blocking those mails, try this.

 

[Vortex]

Poor guy, he gets his hotmail hacked and then Vortex sends him stuff too.

Just can't catch a break...

As for blocking those mails, try this.

Actually it was quite clear by the hotmail address that it was not hacked but an account created to spam. But thanks for once again trying to claim I don't know what I'm doing in a job I do daily.

Not sure what your issue is with me Wulf, but get over it.

 

[Wulf2k]

I have no issues with you Vortex, and think you're damn near like-able in any topic that doesn't involve us discussing technology. In fact, I'll even grant that you most likely do your job and know your stuff very well, and we just have some serious communication issues whenever we discuss it.

Fair enough? Or should we bring this thread to 200 posts about the definition of a gateway, or whatever it was last time?

 

[Wulf2k]

Actually it was quite clear by the hotmail address that it was not hacked but an account created to spam

Then it was not one of these emails as N49ATV said, making it a completely different situation.

No human is sending out these emails by hand and reading the responses, and thus any harmful payloads sent to the originating addresses/PCs/servers would only harm virus-infected innocents. My comment was about that scenario.

I will apologize for commenting based on inaccurate information.

 

[N49ATV]

You assumed wulf. Sure maybe a server is doing it, but it was still linked to a hotmail account. And it was traced back to it. I dont think anyone is sending these out, but rather a program is, but perhaps someone is reading the feed back entered into the fake website they want you to log into.

 

[Wulf2k]

A program is sending these out, most likely viruses spread across hundreds of random users' PCs. They fake a return address at battle.net, so any responses are not viewed by the creators of the virus, but sent directly to the legitimate battle.net. That is why they don't ask you to reply with anything, nobody involved in the scam will at any point ever touch anything email related. Email is outbound to you, only from the infected machines. There is no hotmail in the chain of these emails.

In the email is a link. The link looks like it goes to battle.net, but really goes to bajjle net, or something that looks kind of like it in the address bar if you're not paying attention. When you enter your log in information into this site, it is stored for their later perusal. The best you could hope to do is poison their list with garbage data, but even then, I wouldn't be surprised if they had an automated program that would check if the login info worked without them wasting their time.

The problem with getting vengeance on any link in this chain is that you're either destroying some great grandmother's virus infected picture emailing machineajigger, or you're launching an attack against a corporate entity that's unaware of what they're hosting. Both of which may be valid targets to the vigilante script kiddies of the world, but neither of which will solve the problem.

 

[Wulf2k]

I just checked, and the spam one that points to "usbattlenetblizzardnet" has captured 5 logins/passwords, and saves them plaintext on the server. So it doesn't even email them out again afterwards, it just waits for the person to check it.

 

[Wulf2k]

Random update: The one I was watching just got taken down. It was up for about 24 hours, and snagged about 9 usernames/passwords.

Another one, using the more obviously wrong baiiic domain, has been up since Aug 30 and has only snagged a single username/password. So, it looks like people do actually pay some attention to the address bar.

 

[Skylark SP]

Wulf, what are you using for your sandbox environment?

 

[Wulf2k]

Depends on what I'm testing.

Sandboxie is what I use mostly. It grants full read access to the system you're on, but any writes are intercepted and directed into a separate folder. So you can run a suspicious program in it, check the folder, and see that c:\sandbox\windows\system32\svvchost.exe is the only file it created, making it easy to remove/document. It also has a systray icon that shows if any sandboxed processes continue to run after they appear to have closed. For an extra layer of paranoia, I'll often run it in a virtual machine, then just delete/restore the VM when I'm done.

It doesn't run the more devious rootkit-style malware, but it fails to do it in such a way that you know that something naughty tried to happen.

 

[Chardonnay]

Depends on what I'm testing.

Sandboxie is what I use mostly. It grants full read access to the system you're on, but any writes are intercepted and directed into a separate folder. So you can run a suspicious program in it, check the folder, and see that c:\sandbox\windows\system32\svvchost.exe is the only file it created, making it easy to remove/document. It also has a systray icon that shows if any sandboxed processes continue to run after they appear to have closed. For an extra layer of paranoia, I'll often run it in a virtual machine, then just delete/restore the VM when I'm done.

It doesn't run the more devious rootkit-style malware, but it fails to do it in such a way that you know that something naughty tried to happen.

My ex-wife use to have a sandboxie that's why i divorced her...

 

[Wulf2k]

I can't help but take that another direction, and visualize you screaming at a toddler playing in a sandbox that you're getting a divorce....

 

[Chardonnay]

I can't help but take that another direction, and visualize you screaming at a toddler playing in a sandbox that you're getting a divorce....

snap: