Geoff Keighley, videogame journo and host of Spike TV’s GTTV has had one of his Xbox 360 accounts hacked under what appears to be the same conditions as we’ve been reporting for a week or two now.
“Fun times,” he tweeted, “looks like one of my XBOX Live accounts was just hacked and someone had fun buying a lot of ‘GOLD JUMBO PACKS, today.”
Sounds like the MO that has been widely reported on gaming forums for a while, but ignored by the majority of the press until The Sun mishandled the situation by inferring that those affected were the result of phishing attacks.
It’s becoming clearer that this isn’t the case.
Stephen Toulouse, Xbox LIVE Director of Policy and Enforcement replied to Geoff rather quickly. “Shoot me a mail with the tag,” he said. Geoff has since tweeted that his account will be locked for “25 days” whilst Microsoft investigate. This appears to be the minimum.
I too had my Xbox Live account hacked, although it was several months ago. Upon regaining control of it, after a very friendly chat with Xbox Support in Ireland and a lengthy wait, the only indication of the hack was that the last played game was FIFA 11. I have never owned FIFA 11 on 360.
I was lucky enough that I didn’t lose any money (my credit card was never linked to Xbox Live and I can’t be sure there were points on my account before the hack) but regaining access to my own Gamertag, and linking it back up to the correct email address, was a lengthy and frustrating process. I never shared any personal information with anyone and in my case Microsoft Support themselves repeatedly referred to the issue as a hack.
If there is any chance that this latest spate of suspicious FIFA-related account activity might be down to an external intrusion via some exploit other than user indiscretion, Microsoft absolutely needs to address it in a much more comprehensive manner than they have been so far.
Let’s hope this high profile case brings Microsoft to comment accordingly.
PsychoboyUK
emmmm hello Microsoft your users are suffering!!! I think it is about time they see sense and pull a SONY and take XBL down for a bit and get to the bottom of this!
I agree that that maybe a drastic measure and it WOULD hurt XBL alot but it maybe the only way to deal with the issue (As sony did back in april) but again it is up to MS!! I also foreseen this coming about 2 weeks ago as I said to a facebook friend “It has happened to PSN and it wont be long till XBL gets hit too!!” Looks like it is slowly happening lets see how MS deal with it :)!
cam the man
Don’t know if my 360 account was hacked as I haven’t turned it on for over a year. The credit card I used has expired so they would get nothing from it.
Tomhlord
Sadly, this is nothing new and has been happening for a couple of years to no large extent. I do believe a host of a gaming podcast had it happen to him a while back, with lots of XBLA games being bought and charged to his credit card.
Tomhlord
I should add, I have always though that this is a far more serious case that the Sony debacle. Not wanting to stoke any fires, but in these cases it is very clear that things are bought and users are losing money. Am I right in thinking that it hasn’t been proved that anyone lost any money through the Sony ‘Hack’?
TROPtastic
I don’t think anyone did, well, except for the costs of launching lawsuits against Sony.
The Lone Steven
Microsoft, you need to investigate this as from what i have heard, it’s starting to become a common thing. Don’t blame the users as that could lead to them going to a competitor’s console.
I think they should temporaily cut off access to EA accounts just to see if there is an exploit coming from the EA hack. I know EA may be unhappy at it but it’s that or shut down Live for a while which could annoy a lot of people unless MS refund the cost of XBL gold. :)
I hope no TSAers get their accounts hacked. :S I would advise anyone who uses their credit card for Live to switch to MS points cards untill MS solves this as it could stop you from having credit card details from getting nicked. :)
IAmJacksMedullaOblongata
Something is up, that’s obvious. If it transpires MS have been negligent by going around saying nothing is afoot, then we could be looking at an ACTUAL class action law suit.
Bad things happen. How you respond dictates how bad the fallout is.
Marc
Well, speaking as another journalist I can confirm that the Xbox Live system has been compromised in some way as I’ve just spent the last hour sorting my son’s hacked account out. I think we managed to stop three transactions going through for ‘points’ but one did go through yesterday for £17 (but no email was sent – my son noticed three emails that came through late this afternoon confirming purchase of various amounts of points). We’ve stopped his debit card but if all the transactions are posted that will leave him with just £11… He’s also seems to have to recover his account on each login. He’s now changing the login linked email etc. Attempts to delete the card fail but it should be useless now anyway.
What I don’t understand how the points can be transferred or added to someone else but bought and billed to my son’s account. This afternoon they were obviously taking out as much as they could – first 6000 points, then 2000 then 1000 in 5 mins as I presume larger amounts were refused as the account was emptied. Also, how come the transaction yesterday did not generate an email?
And to think I wrote an article on cloud security recently…
colmshan1990
I don’t know about xbox live, but sometimes after I add money to my PSN wallet, SCEE don’t bill me for up to a week afterwards (I check my accounts online A LOT).
I always get the receipt e-mail at the moment of purchase though. Maybe the e-mails are linked to when Microsoft actually take the money out of your account instead of when the purchase was made?
tatoemonkey
Who?
amiga_dude
A little birdy told me that one of the team of BBC click is keen looking it to this. Just hope Richard gives the OK.
JBoo
“but ignored by the majority of the press”
Why am i not surprised about that comment lol
+ I can’t understand this loyalty to MicroSoft from the ‘gaming’ press? Is it because they are an American company? Maybe? Hmm
jaksmakndaxter
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems Microsoft are not handling this hacking issue very well at all. Sony was on top of it pretty quickly,and I would expect the same,if not way more,out of The Almighty Microsoft (Hello!? Windows!!!) Very disappointing news indeed….and I was finally convinced I would buy a 360.