Keylogging

A malicious and surreptitious method of capturing and recording user keystrokes on a personal computer usually with the intent of enabling account fraud or identity theft by forwarding this information on immediately or at a later time over the network to the controller of the keylogger. This method is not specific to World of Warcraft, but is often used to take over people's accounts without their knowledge.

The following types of information are usually gathered for illicit use:

• Name, address, or other personal information
• Login and password
• Credit card, Paypal, or other financial data numbers
• Social security or other personal identification numbers

In World of Warcraft, these methods are often used to get access to characters on a player's account, strip them of their items (often disenchanting the soulbound ones) and money for sale or transfer to another character for possible future gold selling. If the account taken over is that of a guild officer, a guild's resources can also be stripped in a similar fashion.

• Gold buyer
• Gold buying
• Gold farmer
• Gold seller
• Phishing