A wee 5-year-old boy wonder has discovered a hole in Microsoft’s online gaming services.
In an interview with ABC affiliate KGTV in San Diego, five-year-old Kristoffer Von Hassel explains how he easily managed to gain access to his father’s password-protected Xbox Live account to play and make purchases. His secret? After entering in the wrong password and being directed to a second screen, he simply input a bunch of spaces and was granted access to the XBL account.
Luckily for Kristopher, instead of getting grounded, his father, who works in computer security, praised his find, while Microsoft gave the little fellow four games, $50, and a year-long subscription to Xbox Live.
Sure, it may be adorable when a little kid does it, but don’t expect pushing all the buttons to get you very far. Microsoft has already come up with a fix for the issue, and Kristopher is now part of a list of security researchers that have helped make Microsoft online services more secure.
Way to go, kid.
HT: KGTV/San Diego
I remember logging into my dad’s win 98 PC by hitting Escape at the Login Prompt. MS Testing team- How do you guys sleep at night?
Finding a problem like that should be worth more than 3 games $50 and a subscription, especially the amount of money the problem could have cost.
There’s something hilarious to me about the fact that he’s playing a Microsoft console using a Sony TV. 🙂
Button mashing always foils the best laid plans!
Brings a tear to my eye.
A boy taking after his old man in a profession I can relate to.
Also in the sense that Microsoft has released security defaults so easy a 5-year old can crack it.