About a week ago, I put out a warning telling people to be careful about emails claiming to be from Blizzard over their passwords being reset. Apart from the usual worry of the Christmas season putting a spike in the number of spam emails sent, I had an unexplainable feeling that something big was going to happen this month, I just couldn’t put my finger on what.
This weekend, Gawker was hacked, releasing the usernames and passwords of anyone who commented on Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Gawker, Jezebel,
io9, Jalopnik, Kotaku, Deadspin, and Fleshbot, according to the email sent out. If you commented on these websites in the past, you’ve likely already received an email. If you have received an email, you can check this Slate page to see if your account has been released: http://www.slate.com/id/2277768/
Phishers and spammers have been using this information to send out emails claiming to be from Blizzard and other companies. Of course, this doesn’t help the situation that Blizzard has apparently been sending their own legitimate emails, telling users to reset their passwords if they are a commenter on any of the aforementioned websites.
For those of you ready to soil yourselves, the passwords leaked are encrypted, but that should not keep you from changing your passwords.
MMO Fallout 