If for some reason you actually thought your Xbox account information was secure, try this little morsel on for size: a 5-year-old cracked his dad’s Xbox Live account.
San Diego TV station KGTV told the tale (since retold on Crave gaming site Game Revolution) of Kristoffer Von Hassel of Ocean Beach, who uncovered a back door that allowed him access to all of his dad’s Xbox One goodies.
The industrious (and clearly sneaky as hell) youngster figured out that if you put in the wrong password, then entered all spaces in the followup screen, Microsoft would give up the goods and let you into any account that you wanted.
Thankfully, Kristoffer’s parents were a little more observant than Microsoft. They spotted their junior hacker playing big-boy games that he shouldn’t have been playing, got the busted kid to give up his trick, then alerted Microsoft to the security hole.
A red-faced Microsoft said they’ve now fixed the problem — and they’ve even acknowledged Kristoffer on their website for his efforts. Oh yeah, and they also gave the kid a free year of Xbox Gold Live and four free games.
Not too bad…hopefully, it’s enough positive reinforcement to steer the kid toward a career in computer security (like his dad) and away from a life of cyber-crime.
