Microsoft's malware blog is warning of two new worms that attempt to steal account information for online games from Windows XP or Vista users. These worms are breaking previous keylogging success rate records and are worth educating yourself about.

The first one is called Taterf which has infected over 1.2 milion machines worldwide during its first week. The other worm is called Frethog and has so far a 650,000+ machine first-week infection rate. These rates are stunning to malware specialists who are used to seeing these kinds of numbers only after a month of the worm's existance. These worms take advantage of Windows' autoplay and autorun functions that run for CDs, DVDs, and some USB sticks. They can be sneaky about it too. They try to disquise autorun with other pop-up dialog boxes, like "Show me these awesome pictures." You do need to confirm this action manually, but this obstacle hasn't much limited the spread of the worms to date.

Make sure you read the instructions on Microsoft's support site for how to protect yourself from these worms. The short answer is to disable autorun from CDs under XP (a registry change) or to change the same option from the Vista control panel. You should also disable autoplay as an even greater precaution. Also, of course, make sure you check the box on the WoW login screen to save your account name. That way if you do get infected with a keylogger, they won't be able to see your keystrokes for both your account name and your password.

Maintenance day is underway until 2pET/11aPT and many WoW fans are searching for something to do, while players with day jobs log on to point out that they can never play during these hours. Fortunately, we have lots going on today, as well as some highlights from the past week that you won't want to miss.

Wrath of the Lich King:

• Compilation of everything we know of to date about Death Knights, the new hero class we'll be seeing with the expansion.
• The new expansion is now in alpha testing! Read on to find out what this means, as well as what it doesn't mean.

Arena Season 4:

• A great analysis of when arena season 4 might begin.

Hackers seem to be trying more and more ways to get legitimate accounts out of players hands and working to steal and farm more gold, but if you think they've had some sneaky schemes in the past, you ain't seen nothing yet. Our colleagues at Massively have a story that's both amazing and disturbing at the same time.

A lot of geeks found a digital photo frame under the tree this year. Seems like a good idea, I'm sure a lot of us have a pretty large collection of digital photographs stored on memory cards and flash drives that we just haven't quite gotten around to printing for display.

Unfortunately, certain frames sold at Best Buy, Target, Costco and Sam's Club come with an extra undocumented feature, in that they have a nasty little bug that's being dubbed Mocmex. The bug can burrow its way into your computer, latch itself in, and sniff out account information. It doesn't seem to affect Linux or Macs, at least not in its current form, but right now there doesn't seem to be a single manufacturer or frame type that's infected, so the origin of the bug hasn't been nailed down.

If you think you've got one of the infected picture frames, Massively recommends contacting the SANS institute and calling the store where the frame was purchased. You can check their story for the contact information.

The upside of this, I suppose, is that if the farmers are starting to branch into using peripherals to steal our accounts, they may be getting pretty desperate. The downside is, when we have people who practice safe web browsing and keep a clean computer getting bitten, like our Amanda Dean for example, we could be in some trouble. With any luck, all the major virus programs will have a cure for Mocmex and programs like it soon. In the meantime, it looks like we'll have to be extra careful about what we install on our computers, and make sure our anti-virus programs and firewalls are up to date.

Evidently attendees of BlizzCon have begun receiving emails claiming that Wrath of the Lich King Beta will begin in only three weeks. According to Bornakk, these emails are a hoax, and the original statement provided regarding such a beta still holds. There is currently no WotLK beta, and should one be in the works, there would be an announcement on the official site.

As always, please remember to be especially cautious when asked to provide any account information. Do a search to find out if anyone else has received the same requests, and under what circumstances. If you are concerned about keylogging programs, refer to our guide on protecting your system.

Update: Despite the fact that the rumors, and emails, have been floating around for a little while, Bornakk's official response came yesterday.