Battle.net Authenticator Policy Changed

October 8, 2010 12:40 PM

Blizzard has made a policy change to its Authenticator security devices and programs in an effort to better protect Battle.net game accounts.

Now, a single authenticator or installation of a mobile authenticator can only be attached to a single Battle.net account. If you already had multiple Battle.net accounts tied to a single auth, you will not need to purchase additional devices and it will continue to function as it has.

This change applies only to new authenticators, but those that remove an authenticator from a Battle.net account will not be able to re-associate it with another account if it still has at least one account linked.

This should help reduce some of the account theft, or at least make it more cumbersome for thieves as they will have to get a new auth for each account they attempt to steal.

If you have not already added an authenticator to your Battle.net account, I recommend you do so, especially if you have a World of Warcraft account. Free versions are available as applications for iOS and Android.

Brian Leahy

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radio_babylon

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October 8, 2010 2:00 PM

so if im using the mobile phone authenticator... if i want to protect another account, i need another phone? surely not...
- JackRandomSX
  
   reply
  October 8, 2010 2:05 PM
  
  not sure how they're handling this, but the multi-authenticator thing has been exploited massively in account theft, so this is probably a very smart move
- Schnapple
  
   reply
  October 8, 2010 3:03 PM
  
  You'd probably need to purchase the fob thing for the other accounts (which, at $6.50, is pretty cheap). I would guess that they're comfortable with the vast majority of people only having one account so the mobile phone situation doesn't bother them.
- Lucy Labia
  
   reply
  October 8, 2010 3:14 PM
  
  ok my understanding is you don't need a second auth
  
  what happens is if you assign your authenticator to the second account it is now tied to both accounts. If you were then to try and remove it, and then assign a NEW SECOND authenticator to it, then it would fail and tell you that only the first one can be re-assigned to it.
  
  That is my understanding.