As many of you know, one of our guild members had their account compromised. No matter the root cause, the end result is that someone--not the player in question--managed to obtain the login credentials for this player's account and proceeded to not only sell and/or destroy that players gold, items, and even transfer characters, but also mostly empty out the guild bank.

Guild management has implemented some additional security to protect the guild's assets in the future (less permissions for officers, etc), but personal account security is up to you. I wanted to touch on it briefly after seeing it happen on our own turf.

• Don't buy gold or powerleveling services. Not only is it against the rules, but it spawns the gold-farming business on our server, hurting the in-game economy for everyone, and you can almost never trust a powerleveling service with your account information.
• Keep your computer clean. Automated programs (viruses, spyware, etc) can steal your account information, and this is actually quite common. It's much easier to steal your World of Warcraft credentials than it is to steal your real money, and is very profitable. Be sure to run antivirus and antispyware programs on your computer!
• Use an authenticator. If you really want to be secure, use an authenticator. You can get the physical authenticators at this link from the Blizzard Store, and if you have an iPhone or iPod touch you can get a digital authenticator. They work by generating a pseudo-random number every so often, and you have to have this number to log in to your account. The downside is additional time to log in, and if you don't have your authenticator, you can't play--but they are very secure and is probably the best thing you can do for your account. The digital authenticators are free, and the physical ones are only about seven dollars.

If anyone has any questions or concerns regarding account security, please do not hesitate to contact me in game and we will talk!

[Edit] Blizzard also has a very good article on account security at http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=26328.