?Diablo 3? Release Suffers 'Hacks' And Crashed Servers, ?We?ve Been Taking The Situation Extremely Seriously,? Blizzard Says

Numerous Diablo 3 players have recently reported that their Battle.net accounts have been hacked. Blizzard has responded to the issue and assured fans that they are addressing the matter.

We've been taking the situation extremely seriously from the start, and have done everything possible to verify how and in what circumstances these compromises are occurring, community manager of Battle.net Bashiok said on May 22^nd.

Bashiok also added that there has been no record of hackers gaining access to player's accounts through abnormal circumstances. After investigating the issue, Battle.net staff found that hackers have only broke into players' accounts by using their password to log in.

Despite the claims and theories being made, we have yet to find any situations in which a person's account was not compromised through traditional means of someone else logging into their account through the use of their password, he said.

Other Blizzard officials also chimed in to convince fans that their servers remain untouched, attributing the panic to the hype surrounding major game releases.

We'd like to take a moment to address the recent reports that suggested that Battle.net and Diablo III may have been compromised, Blizzard community manager Stephanie Lylirra Johnson's said in an account and security forum. Historically, the release of a new game-such as a World of Warcraft expansion-will result in an increase in reports of individual account compromises, and that's exactly what we're seeing now with Diablo III.

The message continued to encourage players to use authenticators to secure their accounts, describing the service as some of the most effective measures we offer to help players protect themselves against account compromises.

We encourage everyone to take advantage of them, Lylirra said. There is also a new service that has been recently introduced called Battle.net SMS Protect, which allows players to use their cell phones to unlock a Battle.net account, recover their account names, approve a password reset, or remove a lost authenticator. Users can also set up the system to send a text message alert when unusual activity is detected on their account.

We know how frustrating it can be to become the victim of account theft, and as always, we're dedicated to doing everything we can to help our players keep their Battle.net accounts safe-and we appreciate everyone who's doing their part to help protect their accounts as well, Lylirra's also said.

The launch of Diablo 3 has not been a smooth process, despite the high anticipation from fans and positive feedback from critics. On the May 15^th release date, eager gamers flocked to Battle.net to begin the long-awaited adventure. However, the traffic was so tremendous that it caused the Battle.net servers to shut down. Players were greeted with an error message known as Error 37, which became a trending topic on Twitter that day.

The game was taken offline on May 17^th for server maintenance, prompting Blizzard to release an apology to their fans.

Despite very aggressive projections, our preparations for the launch of the game did not go far enough, the official statement on Battle.net read.