Microsoft: Online Gamers Still a Top Malware Target

Airbot · 21 Feb 2009

What's the most common type of malware on the Internet? Viruses? Botnet code? How about password-stealing worms, designed to victimize online gamers?

Microsoft said Thursday it had removed nearly 1 million samples of a particularly virulent password-stealing worm in the first half of February. The company's Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) rooted out more than 981,000 copies of a family of programs called Win32/Taterf, best known for stealing usernames and passwords for games such as World of Warcraft, Legend of Mir and Gamania.

more: Yahoo! Tech

swarfega · 22 Feb 2009

Its not surprising really given the age of some of the players I come across. Some are as young as 8 which imo is a little too young.

front243 · 03 Mar 2009

Aye, I am playing World of Warcraft myself. Many of the most popular fansites of that game is targeted.

My suggestions to WoW players:

1. Get Firefox + Noscript + Adblock Plus
The typical "entry point" for malaware are banner ads on fansites. Even the most popular like wowhead, etc. has been targets before. Therefore install these addons, block ads, and only allow scripts from sites you trust via Noscript.
2. Get an updated antivirus program and keep it up-to-date.
There are several threads about antivirus in this forum.
3. Get a Blizzard Authenticator.
If Blizzard store have them in stock that is :)