Fake Diablo beta invites hitting inboxes

Since the third installment of the popular Diablo game franchise has been announced in 2008, fans all over the world have been impatiently waiting for it to become available.

And for some of them, the news that two days ago Blizzard had begun sending out invites for a closed beta testing run could have made them less critical of the fake invites that have, predictably, also been spotted going out.

The cyber crooks are after Battle.net credentials, and these emails usually contain a direct link to the phishing site that looks very much like the legitimate login page.

“Phishing has come a long way by now and the quality of design and text has improved a lot over the years,” points out Kaspersky Lab Expert Christian Funk. “Even experienced users have a hard time nowadays to identify phishing mails as such.”

He warns that the legitimate invitation does not include a direct link to the login page – it instructs the lucky user to log into his account and go to the “Account” section where additional information is offered.

Legitimate online businesses and services, especially the most popular ones, have long learned to differentiate their emails from those sent by cyber crooks by not including such direct links. So, if you spot one, chances are the email is not what it claims to be.