Phishers offer WoW players free in-game pets

Avid World of Warcraft players are being targeted with phishing emails seemingly coming from Blizzard Entertainment, the video game developer behind the popular multiplayer role-playing game, warns Malwarebytes’ Chris Boyd.

The email is supposedly a notification that a friend has purchased an in-game pet for the email recipient, and the latter can claim said pet by logging into Battle.net, Blizzards online gaming platform.

Unfortunately, clicking the button in the email will direct the recipient to a web page that looks a bit like Battle.net’s login page, but is not – it’s a phishing website created to collect victims’ login credentials.

The (long) URL of the blocked phishing site mentions Battle.net, “password verify”, “login”, and “account support”, in the attempt to convince potential victims of the site’s legitimacy.

The Google Safe Browsing service is already warning visitors that the website is deceptive, and can trick them into doing something dangerous, like installing software or disclosing sensitive information.

Still, it’s a piece of cake for the scammers to set up a new one and simply change the link in the phishing email, so the threat is still there, and gamers should be wary.