Diablo 3 accounts hacked, gold and items stolen

Eurogamer has received multiple reports of Diablo 3 accounts being hacked.

Over the weekend Eurogamer writer Christian Donlan saw his account hacked and transferred to the control of the mysterious Anna. Her conversation with Eurogamer reviews editor Oli Welsh is documented below.

A quick glance online shows multiple reports of Diablo 3 accounts being hacked, suggesting it is a growing issue. Players have seen the loss of items stored in character inventory and stash, and gold removed as their accounts are stripped bare. Blizzard has been working to "roll back" affected characters to a point before accounts were compromised, but some progress is lost.

The reports coincided with the EU Diablo 3 servers going offline on Sunday afternoon for around four hours, preventing players from logging in (error 33). It has been suggested that the EU servers were taken offline following a SQL injection attack, but this remains unconfirmed.

Blizzard offers an Authenticator designed to provide extra security to your account. Donlan did not have the authenticator before the hack, but reports suggest accounts have been compromised even with this enabled.

One theory suggested by players on the Battle.net forum revolves around hijacking session identifiers, which would allow hackers to take over accounts without alerting Blizzard's authentication server. Again, this remains unconfirmed.

Whatever the cause, Blizzard will be keen to address the situation quickly, especially in light of the upcoming release of the real money auction house and the growing complaints from players. Blizzard said last week it was set for release at the end of the month.

Eurogamer has requested comment from Blizzard, which is yet to address the issue.