Yesterday we received an e-mail from SOE informing us of a 25% discount on their SOE Authenticator keyring security fobs licensed from Vasco. These devices can be ordered from the SOE Station Store for $7.49 plus shipping and handling. This promotion ends November 17, 2011 at 8:59am PDT (11:59am EDT; 16:59 GMT; 17:59 CET).

Note the free SOE Mobile Authenticator app for iPhone and Android is still listed as ‘Coming Soon’.

You can read the SOE Authenticator Frequently Asked Questions at SOE.com.

If there’s one thing you don’t want to recycle, it’s passwords, as some EverQuest II players found recently out.

I think we’re all guilty of using the same login and password on many different sites such as e-mail, bank websites, and yes our SOE acounts. Recently, attempts were made by outsiders to login to some 33,000 SOE accounts using login and password credentials taken from other websites. SOE and PSN detected these login attempts and have pre-emptively disabled any accounts that matched the login/password credentials stolen from websites not affiliated with Sony. Note: This appears to be unrelated to this May’s SOE/PSN security breach.

But first, a message from the EQ2Wire The Sky is Not Falling So Keep Your Pants On Club:

This is NOT a security breach!

SOE has not been “hacked again”!

DON’T PANIC!

SOE Security Authenticators are now available from SOE.com for $9.95 including domestic shipping and handling. They may be used on one or more Station accounts.

Pricing compares favorably to the WoW Battle.net security fobs which cost $6.50 plus shipping. Plus, you may use one SOE Authenticator on multiple Station accounts, a feature the Battle.net devices lack as of October 2010.

Note: Only after entering your credit card information does international shipping or handling rates appear. We’ve seen several reports that international shipping is more expensive than the security fob itself. In the range of $10-13 US, 10 Euros, $13 AUD, etc.

There is no word on when the announced free SOE Authenticator apps for iPhone, Android, and possibly other platforms will appear.

Check out our detailed guide SOE Puts Security in your Pocket — Vasco Security Fobs which we posted on July 11th.

SOE President John Smedley opened the SOE Fan Faire 2011 Welcome Reception with a personal apology. He apologized for the downtime, the hassle of changing passwords, and the service outage that affected all of Sony Online Entertainment this May.

He wasted no time in announcing that all Fan Faire attendees would receive a Vasco Security Authenticator key fob. I personally was provided with an EverQuest II-branded security key fob.