Xbox Live Accounts are being Hacked!
Published by hq_hacker_girl on Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Tagged: Gaming, Xbox 360, Xbox Live,
Xbox Live accounts that have been recently hacked all have a common factor linking them together - FIFA 11 and FIFA 12.
The Xbox 360 has been big hit for many years, taking the lead in many of the products, games and software that has been released since its arrival. The Xbox 360 has also built a good reputation for its development and success in being able to keep hacked consoles from accessing the internet. Although the Xbox 360 has been a big success for many of its dedicated gamers, there has been a few unfortunate cases where Xbox Live users have had their accounts hacked due to serious security issues. Reports of these issues have been made since October 2011 and is now causing serious concern for both Microsoft and their customers. Xbox Live accounts that have been hacked into all have a common factor linking them together - FIFA 11 and FIFA 12. Even if the Xbox Live member has never played FIFA, it shows up on their account as a recently played game with associated downloadable content.
Here is an example of what is happening, quoted from a case which has just recently occurred;
I am now among the many Xbox gamers that has my account under lock down from Microsoft for fraud investigation. January 1 I received 2 emails from Paypal indicating I had just made 2 purchases from Microsoft, one for 79.99 and one for 49.99. Immediately I logged into xbox.com to look at my xbox account only to discover I no longer existed. I then logged into Paypal and disputed the charges and removed Microsoft from the auto-pay agreement (this was a smart move as they would have spent more I'm sure).
Next I turn on my Xbox, and sure enough I have no live account anymore. I then call Microsoft Live support not knowing what I would get since it was New Year's day and also a Sunday. I actually did talk to a person and they took my console information and basically told me they would submit it to Microsoft Fraud investigation and at that time my account would be locked. Also that I would get an email with a code for 30 days of live service.
Some articles posted on IGN, Joystiq, and G4TV in early October 2011 quote Microsoft is saying that this is not a widespread problem, even though many have commented on the articles saying the exact issue described in the story has happened to them. To this day, people’s accounts are still being hacked.
When the Playstation Network shut down due to hacking, the story was covered by every mainstream news outlet very quickly. In contrast, even though these Microsoft hacks have continued for over three months there has been little formal recognition of the issue by Microsoft or news media. The only information available has come from Xbox users posting articles or comments on gaming websites and forums.
Microsoft reports that they take their security seriously and that they are working with individual users to get their accounts back to normal. They even suggest that Xbox users follow the Xbox LIVE Account Security guidelines located Xbox.com’s website to help prevent any further issues that may occur. Although this is only a temporary fix to the problem, Microsoft will have to ensure further work is done to help prevent this problem over a long term basis.
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