Wherever there's something of value involved in an activity, there are always scammers looking to pray on the gullible and indeed, World of Warcraft is no exception in this respect. A new scam has been recently uncovered tied to the LUE script language used in chat, or rather, the scam isn't exactly new, it is just new to most of the people who use the game and chat in good faith. The scam is not just about robbing someone of all their virtual stuff, but also about making use of the victim to rob other people further down the line.
The scam starts out by someone convincing the victim to type a specific line of code into his/her chat window. This is usually achieved through the promising of a rare item, a mount, or something other of value in the game-universe. Once the victim complies, the code gives full access to his/her chat window to the perpetrator, who can then proceed to completely mask his/her illicit activities from the victim, to use the victim's account to convince others to join the "scheme" and to "trade" away all the victim's possessions to him/herself for nothing.
The bottom line about the whole thing is that all the above said activities can be performed and unleashed without the victim ever knowing about them. One's friend can even think one is robbing them while the suspected perpetrator is nothing but a victim him/herself.
Such attacks can be disguised and hidden in 3rd party delivered DLCs, which is why it's always a great idea to only download content directly from Blizzard. Also, as a general guide-line: one should never input anything that looks like code in the chat window in any shape or form.
Philip Thalberg has been a member of the top eSports community since 2004.
