Advertisement

Forum Post of the Day: Avoiding keyloggers


Keyloggers have been plaguing the game for a while now, and have begun to embed links into forum posts in an increasingly sophisticated manner. For this reason Lythria on the European Forums has posted an excellent guide to spotting keyloggers and hopefully avoid them. The first thing he suggests is not clicking on a link from a site you don't recognize. There are plenty of sites out there that do safe image hosting for instance, like Photobucket or Image Shack. If the link is asking you to view an image, but you don't recognize the URL, he says pass.

The next suggestion he gives is to check up on the poster. Look at their posting history. Keyloggers will often post the same or similar content, and many time the same links. If you look at what else they have posted on the forums, you may get an idea if this is something you should follow up on or not. Also the spelling of links that look legit can be tweaked, with the letter o replaced by the number 0 to fool you. When in doubt, trust other poster's instincts. If someone has replied saying this might be a keylogger, don't be a hero! If the milk smells bad, you don't take a drink. Apply the same caution to links on the forums.

Honestly, this whole post should be mandatory reading for anyone who spends a good deal of the time on the WoW forums. Read through the suggestions, and then let us know if you have anything to add that might help your fellow players avoid the keylogging trap.

[via European WoW Forums]