http://kotaku.com/5873604/is-microsofts-xbox-live-hacking-problem-worse-than-microsoft-realises?popular=true

I found this article while looking for something else and thought I'd give it a read over.
Seems Microsoft have plenty of investigating and cracking down to do, while they? Probably not?
It also seems their service is rather crappy and fails to act swiftly and hear what the customers are saying, must be all the money clogging their ear holes, probably right.
Even with the message sent to the victim they have yet to respond and act on it. Anyone ever tried the site mentioned in the message?

What are you thoughts on this, has it happened to you or someone you know?
Do you think it will get to the stage of the PS3 hackings?

The unfortunate truth is that most "hacks" where user accounts are stolen are not hacks at all but a good demonstration of ignorance and human error. Some group of criminals create fake websites and forums and then trick people into giving them their account information.

Microsoft can't do anything about that except hunt down those websites but that takes so long that there will be 10 duplicates of the original website by the time it gets taken down.

Microsoft must be utterly destroyed before it destroys us. Simple as that.

It may take time to track down such a site, but there's absolutely no excuse for telling a customer their account is locked and then not locking it.

oh yes, Microsoft is a criminal organization bent on world domination!

I'll prove to you how evil they are! Here is a list of evil things Microsoft has been doing for the past few years:

- Releasing free, awesome software such as http://www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix/...
- http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/products/security-essentials...
- http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/
- https://www.dreamspark.com/default.aspx
- http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/06/21/microsoft-invites-jailbreak-windows-phone-7/ (they invited a jailbreaking-group to jailbreak the Windows Phone 7 and they are releasing the app on the official marketplace)

oh and they are also re-designing and re-launching the GFWL platform as a serious gaming platform (similar to Steam)

and they are starting http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/01/05/free-to-play-microsoft-flight-clearing-the-runway-this-spring/


I know it's cool to hate Microsoft but please, focus your energy on real criminals like Sony.

It made for a good read. Is there any surefire evidence that accounts can be 'hacked' the only person I know who was hacked entered her account details into a website she had been told by a stranger could give you 10,000ms points. It made me laugh when she sounded surprised she could not get on her account any more.

Sad and true with some people having a common sense so small it can't even be seen with an Electron Microscope. That Anonymous group released their latest "thing" I guess showing usernames/passwords from that company they attacked. Have to say after reading that story about it showing just "Some" of the passwords people used it was a failure beyond epic proportions. Think one of the passwords was "password123" which just shames me to even call myself a computer person.

Even now it is a standard to do randomized alphanumericals for each character slot possibly using special characters like !)+=- in there. I mean just sitting here a good password I can think of for a secure system would be O5T+Ls3e21lpM! which would confound the hell out of someone trying to gain access. However as the old saying goes if someone wants to gain access to something they eventually will. Just waiting for microsoft to say they were hit by a "cyber-cruise missile" crafted from the coding that came from stuxnet.

As for these "account hacks" ya people give info to friends then sit there saying "omg I got haxed" no you fool you got owned. Not even my best friend knows my passwords nor do I know his out of respect.

Speaking of passwords... I actually don't have a password on my computer right now and I'm pretty sure it's even more secure than if I used a 20 character randomly generated password. Why? Because you can't connect remotely to a computer without a password, it just doesn't work. If I try to use remote desktop or something like that and I just type in my username and press enter it gives me an error. I also get an error if I try to connect to the computer using the console.

It says right at the beginning that most of the attacks are the result of phishing, which is a form of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(security) -- not computer hacking (it's "hacking the human")

So I'd say it's the standard crappy Gawker Media "title is wrong" stuff.


1. Get metasploit console open on your computer somehow

2. Install silent backdoor VNC program

3. What's a Windows password?

Windows passwords as a form of security only comes into play when you actually want to use network connections of some kind. You can very easily not allow remote connections even with passwords in modern windows (I can't tell you how many times I forget to check the box in advanced system properties to allow remote desktop connections when setting up a computer). They don't prevent physical attacks at all (no encryption of data, no security). So rather than being more secure, you're just not less secure.

oh, you're assuming that I actually read the article. I saw the url, mumbled something incomprehensible (and probably NSFW) about Gawker and refreshed http://news.ycombinator.com/news instead.

Gawker media: annoying dog of the Internet?

Though I still admit to reading Lifehacker (most of the time they at least know what they are doing -- and Adam's created some decent programs even if he doesn't maintain most of them anymore), and reading the deals of the day on Gizmodo (the only thing on that god forsaken site worth checking).

Couldn't agree with you more mate. The problem is, people really do think it's cool to hate on MS...most of them can't back it up with anything solid or noteworthy though.

Ignorance at it's finest, unfortunately.

No hate on MS on the gaming front, but I'll only stop hating Microsoft when they stop the patent FUD crap.

Gotta love their patent on file systems for long file names....

Huh, and here I thought it was cool to hate Apple/Macs. At least it seems that the hate is spread equally these days

Mommy told me to never disrespect a suit-wearing, gun-toting monkey with mad programing skills. However, I need to set some things straight:

#1 the "Microsoft must be destroyed" comment was a joke (I really should have put a smiley there). They do have their flaws, but who doesn't?

#2 I don't care what's "popular" or "cool" and what isn't. If I dislike Macrohard, Phony (or anyone else), I do so for my reasons and no one else's.

I could rant against Macrohard, Phony, Inactivision, EA Lames, Breathesda, Sintendo, Wal-Fart, K-Smarts, Victoria's Revelation, Big Buy, Radio Hovel, Booger King, Captain Disease, Toxic Bell, Short John Gold's, Neeldess Markup, Freddy Bauer, Northeast Scarelines, Jet Pink, My Diminutive Equine, GI Moe, Star Wreck, Star Chores, Blabalot 5, Lord of the Bling, Harold Potty, A Game of Moans, The Wheel of Mime, Flingworld or any other well known (or even marginally known) company/store/chain/series/whatever and get some variation of your reply no matter what reasons I give.

Someone will always support that which others dislike, and imply that the dislikers (or "haters") are "just hatin' 'cuz it's cool". And they will marginalize, or completely ignore, any reasons the "haters" give for voicing their dislike, as if doing so invalidates the reasons for their dislike. It doesn't matter if the "haters" dislike [whatever] as a whole, or a particular practice of [whatever].

True, Microsoft has many redeeming qualities, but these don't invalidate their negative qualities. The same can be said for Sony (and everything else I parodied above).

Fact: I have had some good experiences with Microsoft, but I have had far, far more bad ones and it is because of these experiences that I dislike them. The only thing that could change that dislike is Microsoft itself. I have no doubt that they could change my opinion of them, and they very well may at some point. If and when they do, I'll stop spitting venom at them and target someone else.

[/rant]

Damn, you are creative...

If only Microsoft did away with the stupid Microsoft Points system and allowed Silver Live memberships to access free basic apps (Facebook, Youtube, Twitter) and Netflix which, if you already own a membership, you need another just to watch them? Blah.

Now slow down a minute, lets not do anything rash..

We should all focus our hate on Nintendo. I mean, come on, have you seen the WiiU?

Thanks.

Don't you mean 'Sintendo'?

Ugh, yes. What's next, the Wii-Wii?

Well at least then we know it is fun to play with...

I agree with the points system it's incredibly dumb but honestly I'd rather they simply allow me to play games online without paying and give access to other extra features that don't involve the games I bought the system for through the gold membership.

I don't mind the points system so much as I mind the fact that I can't choose exactly how many points I want to buy. I've had about 160 points of "change" sitting in my account for over a year and nothing to spend them on.

I'd love it if I could just buy 640 points the next time I want to buy an 800 point DLC instead of just shelling out the extra $2 for another 800 points.