Sophos Cloud Optix
If you’re one of the millions of avid players of the online MMORPG World of Warcraft, then you may have been surprised to find the populations of entire cities killed off this weekend.
According to the game’s developers, Blizzard, hackers managed to exploit a vulnerability in the game, resulting in the deaths of many player and non-player characters.
In a forum posting, the company said it was taking the attack “very seriously”:
Earlier today, certain realms were affected by an in-game exploit, resulting in the deaths of player characters and non-player characters in some of the major cities. This exploit has already been hotfixed, so it should not be repeatable. It's safe to continue playing and adventuring in major cities and elsewhere in Azeroth.
As with any exploit, we are taking this disruptive action very seriously and conducting a thorough investigation. If you have information relating to this incident, please email hacks@blizzard.com. We apologize for the inconvenience some of you experienced as a result of this and appreciate your understanding.
The hackers’ attack saw every character in cities such as Stormwind, Orgrimmar and Tarren Mill killed off, leaving piles of skeletons cluttering the streets and buildings. According to the Blizzard, the vulnerability exploited by the hackers has now been patched.
Blizzard is likely to ban the culprits if they manage to identify them, and could possibly take legal action if they can prove that financial losses occurred as a result of the hack.
Oh the digital humanity
While I do play online RPG's every now and then, its annoying for this genre since you are actually putting in time doing things in the game only to have it hacked.
Won't somebody please think of the A.I. children :'O
It's like the plot of a horror movie. You go back to visit your friends only to find bones, or your spirit returns to find that you are now dead …
it's the end of the world (of warcraft)
What financial losses? Its a freaking game get over it maybe if you weren't wasting your life on it you wouldn't have to worry about something as stupid as this.
If you went to the cinema and someone kept putting a popcorn bucket over your head, you would likely get a bit annoyed and may even ask for a refund. This is a paid for service and affected users may be entitled to do the same.
I don't understand the 'wasting your life' comment however, as surely this argument can be used for watching a film, going for a walk, reading a book, or talking to friends and family.
I suppose it just depends what value you give these activities in your own life.
Get a life and stop spending your precious time on WOW, so you can stop pondering on mass suicide bug. There's real life there dieing of hunger and war, why not go help them instead of making big hu ha out of this… duh~!
…he says, wasting his time crying about the fact that people like video games….
It does add a kind of morbid realism – akin to real-world terrorism.
Why would you bother? Just to piss people off?
That's why they call them griefers…
This is hilarious and I'm going to look for YouTube vids RIGHT NOW. The dead players either started laughing uncontrollably when everybody keeled over instantaneously or got incredibly put-out by what amounts to an inconvenience. Anyone who takes WoW seriously enough to demand a refund for a random instance that didn't have a lasting impact on the game needs a wrecking ball to the nuts to ensure they will not spawn the next generation of butthurt babies.
I quit WoW a long while ago (in favor of a sex life and sunlight) but I'm really sad to have missed this epic troll :'(
Some of the funniest shit I’ve ever hard of happening to such hapless, antisocial, socially retarded losers… If only they could drop it permanently, we’d a have few million less brain dead gamer zombies, who much like television watching ZOMBIES, are in fact impairing themselves intellectually & emotionally….
Why shouldn't a person paying for a service (playing WoW on the WoW platform) ask for money back if the service is unavailable? This is a consumer service. What a bizarre conception of virtual services: pay up and shut up no matter how much they suck?
Let me guess. blackandblaond works for the Microsoft Help Desk.