Hacked Off!

I had malicious malware, spyware, call it what you want-ware on my laptop.

How did I know? My WoW account was 'compromised, ie it got hacked and the only way it could have been done was via a keylogger - nooooo! Bummer! How did it sneak past my Norton firewall?

Anyway, after running two full system scans and downloading three different spyware programs (and pay for one of them) the offending 'infection' was identified, quarantined and removed but in the meantime, I had to keep wrestling for control over my WoW account, whilst the hacker happily sold all my character's gear and items. Yes, there are some really sad little sh*ts out there.

Ok, we're not talking about 'real' gear and items, but I have spent a lot of 'real' time (a year as posted recently) playing the game to get said gear and items. Probably hard for non-gamers to understand but let's just say I am really really pissed off and unhappy.

Spent a couple of hours on the phone to Blizzard, the company who run the game and they assure me that they will attempt to restore my account (with said stolen items) but it will take time, maybe up to 5 days.

I feel like a junkie - can I go cold turkey for 5 days? It's different when I go away, I don't think about the game but sitting at home, especially with the possibility of being snowed in again, that's a lot of gaming time I could have.

Boom doesn't have much sympathy, said not to sweat it as my account will be restored eventually. Yeah but...I feel like my laptop has been violated and the serious thing is not just my WoW account being hacked but I do all my banking and internet shopping too on this laptop - how to hide credit card numbers??

I'm going to pay for some extra security for my WoW account but is anything safe any more?

And no, I try not to go on unknown websites but I reckon I was careless and clicked on some advert or dodgy banner by mistake/in impatience whilst waiting for a page to load up or something.

*Sigh* - must learn from this.