Phishing: A new twist on the phishing spam.

[Zyonin]

/sigh. Today I was checking my old email account (the one which is now the spam magnet). In the junk folder was the usual collection of phishing email claiming that my WoW Account was closed or in danger of being closed (it has been frozen for two years now), or that my Aion account has the same status (I have never had an Aion account, lol). Anyway, mixed in that pile o' rubbish was an email claiming to be from Blizzard:

Subject of the email: Fight For Fame And Fortune!

Greetings! Registration (<-former link -Z) for the 2010 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament is now open. All participants in the tournament have a chance to earn the exclusive Armored Murloc in-game pet as well as the exclusive “Vanquisher� title, so get your team together and be ready for fierce competition. Live tournaments with a chance to win cash Instantly create new, fully-customizable level 80s with full sets of epic gear 3v3 Arena team combat Earn exclusive rewards: Armored Murloc Pet, “Vanquisher� title Register now (<-former link -Z), fight for your fame and fortune! Thank you for your time and attention to this matter, and your continued interest in World of Warcraft. Sincerely, Blizzard Entertainment

However if you mouseover links this is the url that comes up:

http://battle.tournament-pvp.com/login.html?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldofwarcraft.com%2Faccount%2Ftournament-upgrade.html&app=wam&rhtml=true

Cue Robby the Robot: "Danger Will Robinson, Danger!"

Yup, it's yet another phishing email, this time targeting those who are interested in the upcoming Arena Tournament. I am not sure if this is a simple "Get the WoW Account info" phish attempt or if it attempts to get your credit card details too (as the Arena Tournament is a $20 extra item for your WoW account). If you attempt to follow the link, you get the Google phish site warning (if you use Firefox or Chrome).

However a quick Whois search reveals these juicy tidbits:

Domain Name: TOURNAMENT-PVP.COM
Registrar: HICHINA ZHICHENG TECHNOLOGY LTD.
Whois Server: grs.hichina.com
Referral URL: http://www.net.cn
Name Server: DNS15.HICHINA.COM
Name Server: DNS16.HICHINA.COM
Status: ok
Updated Date: 21-apr-2010
Creation Date: 21-apr-2010
Expiration Date: 21-apr-2011

As you can tell, it's another Chinese site that popped up today.

Remember, Blizzard will never ask for your account details via an email or other means.

If you are interested in the 2010 Arena Tournament, go by the official World of Warcraft websites. In general, never follow any World of Warcraft links from email especially if the email claims to be from Blizzard.

[nightcracker]

My way is more effective :P

Create a spam filter that moves any message with "world of warcraft" or "wow" and "login" or "account" to your spam folder.

Seriously, how often do you ACTUALLY get mailed by Blizzard

[Zyonin]

Originally Posted by nightcracker My way is more effective :P Create a spam filter that moves any message with "world of warcraft" or "wow" and "login" or "account" to your spam folder. Seriously, how often do you ACTUALLY get mailed by Blizzard

In my case, if WoW email comes in on that account, I know it's spam. My Battle.NET account is a different email. I think some site had an issue sometime back and that is how my old email got on the phishers' lists. Still, I have to laugh at the Aion spam. If my poor old PC could even handle Aion (right now, Diablo 2 is the most it can handle).