Recently a guildie has been receiving official-looking emails that appear to come from Blizzard and say they have noticed that he's attempting to sell his account. Furthermore, his account is suspended until he logs into a website (they provide a link) to confirm he is not, in fact, attempting to sell or do something else against the TOS with his account.

It looks official. Chances are the "From" email even appears to be from Blizzard. But as hackers and thieves are becoming more desperate, you have to be on your toes to notice the details of a scammer, and then consider ways to protect yourself.

I'm going to start with figuring out ways to determine if such an email is a scam or not.

If you ever receive one of these emails, never ever click on a link. Just don't do it. Trust me. The link might look official, but chances are it's not.

I've never received one of these emails myself, so I don't have an example of what they might do, but the process below is no different. I used an email from our guild site's webhost as my example. I also use Gmail, but again, you should be able to do the same in virtually any email program.

Step 1) MOUSE over a link. Do not click, just hold your cursor over the link.

In this first image above, I moused over the link that says "http://www.UltraWebsiteHosting.com" and as you can see in the bottom of my window, the url comes up the same. This link says it will go to the Ultra Website Hosting page in the text of the email, and we can see that it's true.

In this second image (above) I moused over one of the links on the right that said "Managed Dedicated Hosting." The text is linked, but I have no idea what the url may be from just looking at it. So once again, I look at the bottom of my browser window and I can see the url: "http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/...." If I click this link, it will redirect me to another website. Mind you, REDIRECTS are another monster entirely! However, Blizzard is not likely to use redirects. So if the url you see in the bottom of your browser does not say "blizzard.com" or "battle.net" then it is likely a scam. Even if it does say "blizzard.com" or "battle.net" then open a new browser window or tab and TYPE in "http://www.blizzard.com" or "http://www.battle.net" to log in to your account.

Step 2) Understand domains.

There are several parts to a URL (link), but you really only need to worry about what's between the "http://" and the next "/".

I have received an email from Blizzard where the link they gave me was "http://email.blizzard.com." This was legit. "email" is a subdomain of the blizzard.com domain name. Note the period between the two words.

If you get an email where the link is "http://email-blizzard.com" then this would NOT be legit. The domain name in this case would be "email-blizzard.com" because there is no period between the two words. So again, make sure that the official domain in the url that you see is "blizzard.com" or "battle.net."

Step 3) Use domain information to suss out the REAL sender of the email.

There's a little something called a WhoIs domain search. You put in the domain (url) of a website, and it tells you who owns that website, when it was created, what webhost it's registered to, etc. I am personally fond of using the WhoIs lookup on DomainTools.com since it doesn't require a captcha (that box where you have to type in the randomly generated words or numbers like when you register for some sites) to just get the information you want.

Here's an example of the information you get when you look up blizzard.com:



Notice that the domain is registered to Blizzard Entertainment. You'll get the same information if you look up battle.net.

And now...here's an example of a domain that I've gotten from clearly spam-scam-hacker tells in game:



Notice that all the information is BOGUS, and whaddaya know...it's registered in China (CN--the country abbreviation).

So back to my point: If you receive an email, you mouse over a link, and notice that the url is questionable, you can go to a WhoIs lookup to see who REALLY owns that domain. Type it in or RIGHT-CLICK and choose "COPY LINK LOCATION" (do NOT left-click as many of these sites will install a keylogger on your computer!!!) and paste (Ctrl+V) into the WhoIs lookup form field. Chances are the link will not be a legitimate Blizzard site.

Even if you still think it is okay, double-check by opening a new browser window or tab and TYPE in "http://www.blizzard.com" or "http://www.battle.net" to log in to your account.

Step 4) Precautionary measures.

Another way to protect yourself: Use a separate email address for your gaming needs. I will admit I have several email addresses. One of the things I like about Gmail is that I can forward emails from other addresses to my Gmail account so I only have to go to one inbox for all of my email, and I can set up Gmail to reply from those email addresses by verifying that I own them.

The email I use for gaming forums or registering on other gaming sites is not the same one I use for my Battle.net account. So if I receive an email to my "gaming" email address saying I'm trying to sell my account, I automatically know it's a scam because Blizzard has my account email address on file.

Finally...practice safe surfing habits, don't download things you aren't sure about, don't click on links you aren't sure about, and I vouch for using Firefox with the AdBlocker and NoScript addons.

If your gut tells you something is a scam, trust your instinct. Sure, you can get your stuff back if your account gets compromised, but knowing how to protect yourself can save you a lot of hassle.