DRM News

As reported on WoW.com, Blizzard is giving serious consideration to making the use of account authenticators (a physical keyfob…as seen above…that is linked to your player account) mandatory amongst its MMO player base.

One of the biggest continuing issues faced by the game, and thus by its technical team, are security threats such as keyloggers, who can potentially steal account information (and possibly much more than that). The required use of an authenticator would likely reduce the threat of such issues drastically.

Here is a description of how the authenticators work, quoted from the Blizzard store page :

Introducing the Blizzard Authenticator! The Blizzard Authenticator is designed as a supplemental authentication method for your World of Warcraft account, giving you the security of Two-Factor authentication. Each time you log in using the Blizzard Authenticator you are provided with a unique, one-time use password to use in addition to your regular password. Log in with both and you can rest easy knowing that your account is now even more secure from malicious attacks such as keyloggers and trojans.

• Simple and easy to use – press one button to display the digital code. Setup of the token is simple and takes only a few minutes.
• Small and convenient – take your token to wherever you play World of Warcraft and know that your account is secure.

So far, the authenticator is an optional item, but with a sub $10 price tag and a character pet included with it, they have proven somewhat popular. Chances are good that if the device were made a requirement, it would be included with the new Cataclysm expansion, due out later this year.

The question is…if this proves to work well with WoW and/or Battle.net (Blizzard’s multiplayer server network, whose usage was made mandatory for WoW players last year), could we see the upcoming Starcraft and Diablo sequels use similar devices, too?