Disappointed

My World of Warcraft account has been hacked and is being used to spam other players. I have had my account suspended twice in 48 hours for spamming when I haven't even been on! Account services have been next to useless apart from the quick suspension of my account which has hopefully stopped too much crap. At this stage apart from being extremely frustrating (and has resulted in me not wanting to play) there does not seem to have been too much damage done apart from the spamming. From what I can tell so far, my characters gold and items are intact. I haven't been able to check the guild bank yet so I will reserve judgment until I do.

I have all my system up to date, my anti virus is up to date and even after changing the email associated with the account and the password it was still compromised a second time. My anti virus showed up nothing. I installed Windows Defender which picked up nothing and then Spybot Search and Destroy which did pick up a tracker - my guess is this is how they were getting access to my changed email and password. This has now been removed. Initially I think it was installed at a website that looked like the Warcraft account login due to a message I received in game that appeared to come from Blizzard. As I accessed this when I was tired, I wasn't as vigilant as I could have been. I will not make that mistake again. Hackers piss me off no end and so does the fact that you almost need an IT degree to play a favourite game safely on line. It also pisses me off that hackers get paid to do what they do - until it becomes financially un-viable for them to do what they do this kind of behaviour will continue and I believe escalate. I don't think we should have to know exactly how everything has to work inside and out to play something casually however it appears that may be a naive point of view and one that may have no place in our spiraling out of control society (that is another rant for another time).

I have tried to contact Blizzard accounts for Warcraft but they are experiencing a high volume of calls at the moment and cannot take my call. I wonder why ?

On a positive note relating to my last post, Cleopatra did come home that night and we have had no more escapes to date :-)

Surviving

I have survived my two days in Sydney for work and my trip to Forbes today. I am tired now but it was worthwhile. I tested my Powerpoint presentation at my first of many meetings today and all in all I got a lot of positive feedback so feeling good. I also have some ideas now on how to tweak it :-) The group were great and very supportive - thanks!!!

I am feeling bad though now - I didn't check to make sure the front door was locked properly. Cleopatra the clever cat can open the door - she let herself, Rex and Candy out. Candy got so frightened she flew back in the front door not long after when we opened it and Rex hid under the caravan (Shadow was trying to round them up - typical Border Collie). Unfortunately Cleopatra is now missing - down the paddock somewhere no doubt chasing bugs or something, Dylan is feeling miserable - we have neighbours that shoot anything that comes on their property so I can understand why he is worried :-( I feel so bad!!!! Hopefully she will come home soon for her dinner and bed - I really hope so! We have locked Shadow up in the pen so when Cleo comes home he cannot chase her. What a mess!!!

Easter and other sundry stuff

Had a lovely weekend camping with the family at Easter - the weather was perfect, the fish were biting, I finished 3 books in 2 days, lots of good food - what more can you ask for? LOL

I have had this week off work - vegged out, played Warcraft (when my internet connection was working), made some jewelery (some as gifts), got some not so good news about a good friend who is in hospital (wishing you a speedy recovery!), did Target Archery this afternoon and talked lots of SCA stuff, got the house mostly cleaned, did washing - you know, the usual boring stuff ;-)

This week I am off to Sydney Monday and Tuesday for work, then Forbes on Wednesday. The following Monday I am in Bathurst, then back to Sydney on the Wednesday and Orange on the Friday. The 29th and 30th I am in Canberra - next month I have trips to Orange, Sydney, Young and maybe even Broken Hill. Nothing quite like traveling across the state ;-) I may as well enjoy it whilst I can - my position finishes at the end of July when B returns from maternity leave. I will then go back to my substantive position as PA which I will have been away from for 18 months! I will probably have to relearn everything! LOL

I need to follow up with a couple of people and see if they are coming to the feast next month - it will be a smallish affair again this year but that's okay - we will still have fun ;-) Really looking forward to RWIV - complete with Viking wedding :-) I need to start planning and timetabling - I want to be more organised this year. I know laugh away - me organised? Yeah right ;-)

Anyhoo, off to do some browsing methinks :-)