WoW account - how do you get hacked and keylogged?

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory, as the wish to forget it." - Michel de Montaigne

Well guess who got keylogged after 7 long years of not.

I got that e-mail the moment I rolled out of bed and found out that someone transferred my beloved but unused pally. I barely use this toon because I can only heal on her and she was very lucky with rolls/drops on gear (even mounts). The hacker must've taken a lot of time because I have about 10 level 85 toons and most of them have their old gear (season 1 season 2 arena gear, etc) which he vendored.

What I did:

1)Logged on my email, I use gmail and I could see the keylogger was not able to go to my gmail account because his ip didnt show up there. Either that or he could bypass that /cringe/

2)I went on WoW customer service forums as well as posted a request on Bnet and sent a ticket saying that my account was keylogged and someone's credit card was used to transfer my toon.

3)Blizzard froze my account, and even banned/blocked my entire Cataclysm account

4)I changed my password and my e-mail's password

I waited 2 days because I didn't want to send them my personal data (passport, birth certificate, driver's license etc). Sat around moping and thinking about how life is unfair and where did I go wrong, etc. Lots of self-loathing. -_-

I gave in and I eventually called Blizzard's customer service number, Phone: Toll-free at (1-800-592-5499)

I spoke to a customer service guy who asked me these details

a)my email address associated with my game account

b)my security question and the answer

c)my name used on the account

d)last 4 digits of credit card (that I used to pay for the account sometimes)

I eventually got my account back but it was very distateful and made me feel like I didn't want to play anymore. Firstly because:

a)I scanned my pc and I did not find anything, these are the programs I used

1)Malwarebytes

2)Spybot search and destroy

3)Ccleaner

4)Avast anti virus

5)Ad-aware

6)Security Task Manager

7)Spyware Blaster

8)Rkill

9)TDSSkiller

10)Hijackthis

11)Hitmanpro

I think theres 2-3 more that I forgot to include, but that is an extensive list.

b) It took me about 2-3 hours to put my restored items back on all my toons :( and I am not done yet on 3 more toons.

c) I was very uncomfortable knowing that hackers/keyloggers may specifically target a person who has a wow account..I didn't really realize that until some guy in another computer forums pointed it out, that I shouldn't play AT ALL.

It was kind of really depressing, I know people are going to say I was stupid but the only thing I can think of is that I don't have my firewall ON. I have issues with lag and stuff so I keep it off most of the time and to be frank I have kept it off for years. I am keeping it on now.

I used to have a lot of sensitive information on my pc. Information about other people too, now I realize this is what makes these keyloggers and farmers extremely dangerous. They are not your garden variety 10-12 year old boys mischievously stealign your gold so they can sell it for extra cash or to buy something in the game. These are high profile criminals who are out to destroy people's lives. Let me give an example..

Example they get into someones computer and keylogged it in search of a person's gaming account, that is just the beginning. If this person worked for an insurance company and has all your insurance stuff, cards and info there...these things could be stolen.

Now I have been online for so many years, I would like to think I am not that dumb to click an .exe or click any link like a drunken sailor, but yet this thing got on my computer for some reason. I never use my game account to log on any other computer except my new laptop.

I feel at a loss now cause I don't want to go through that whoel thing again. Come Diablo 3 I may never go back to playing wow..

If anyone has any information about this particular type of keylogger please message me, where he lives, I may have jurisdiction of and lead him to the proper authorities. Thanks.

I would like to add also I am using several measures to type in my password, and I am thinking of getting an authenticator. Even if I don't want to play anymore I don't want to lose my characters and stuff.

For more info on authenticators please visit Battle.net