Microsoft speaks about recent Xbox Live security questions

Microsoft confirms that there has been no breach in the security of the Xbox Live service.

Microsoft has spoken out about the recent rumors that Xbox.com and Xbox Live have been breached. An alleged Xbox.com hack granted access to user information and subsquently, the stealing of money via the users stored payment method. Here's what Microsoft had to say about the allegations.

"Microsoft can confirm that there has been no breach to the security of our Xbox Live service. The online safety of Xbox LIVE members remains of the utmost importance, which is why we consistently take measures to protect Xbox LIVE against ever-changing threats. Security in the technology industry is an ongoing process, and with each new form of technology designed to deter attacks, the attackers try to find new ways to subvert it. We continue to evolve our security features and processes to ensure Xbox LIVE customers information is secure. Online fraud and identity theft are industry-wide problems, and as such people using any online services should set strong passwords, not share those passwords across multiple services and refrain from sharing any personal details that could leave them vulnerable. As always, we highly recommend our members follow the Xbox LIVE Account Security guidance provided at http://xbox.com/security to protect your account."

As always, take precautions to protect your password and login information at all times. It might be a good time to update to a more secure password, and be careful who you divulge information to.

By Bill Hess on January 16, 2012

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That Guy
oh, and here i was thinking 123abc was a good password :(
- That Guy
  whoever thumbed me down, im gonna kick you in tha nutts!(read in eric cartmans voice)
- Allen
  respect my authoritah
- That Guy
  haha someones really butthurt. i dont care if you thumb me down because you have nothing that anyone cares about to say.(not you allen.(unless youre the one))
- Allen
  Damnit, I just thumbed your 2nd one down by accident.
- fuck microsoft
  why u got to pay who care about the hack we have to pay for netflix those reemdeem cards dang
Brevs
well i tried mypenis for my password but, it said it was to short.
Brian
I saw the movie Hackers as a kid, taught me all about not using common passwords. Thank you
X
If banbox live gets hacked, what are xbots gonna use to bash the ps3?!
- That Guy
  the fact that despite being “superior” it still lacks good voice communication and is extremely laggy in AAA games like skyrim and bf3.
- AKA Zzz
  It’s not at risk of being hacked. This is a social engineering exploit and involves zero hacking whatsoever.
njb
bf3 is not laggy, wifi and terrible internet speeds obviously affect the game but i experienced any lag.
plus bf3 is the only game on ps3 with terrible voip
anyway, hackers is so bad, angelina jolie is peng but thats it, fair enough its fun but the hacking is so fake, i wish hacking was like that, lol
- That Guy
  and what about the reported lag on skyrim?
Brian
Yup, hackers was corny, this article just reminded me how they used common passwords like GOD to hack
Raven
Until a hack effects 100% of live users and it shuts things down for a month, there’s plenty for xbots to bash sony on
- Allen
  Don’t be a dumb fk, Xbox live as down for 2 weeks in 2007 – they didn’t give you crap for compensation. This year you have 3 seperate banning’s, user’s accounts breached, xbox live points taken, more purchased using your card and those stolen and now this.
  Everyone just needs to take due diligence to protect their own information and you can FK off about the PSN hack – it really wasn’t a big deal, no one lost money on that one yet you have. Again just STFU, no one is perfectly safe and just use your fking head instead of relying on everyone else to protect your own information.
- Cool dude
  Ahem… server overload. How many times do I have to tell you?
- Cool dude
  “This year you have 3 seperate banning”
  Hundreds were banned and were given $70 worth of compensation.
  “user’s accounts breached, xbox live points taken, more purchased using your card and those stolen and now this”
  Its all about the EA accounts that are linked to MS accounts that are affected. (Same password, Same Username)
  If someone is to be blamed, its EA.
  PSN Hack is a big deal. Its even called as one of the biggest breaches of all time. It was down 100% due to hacking. Media all over the world were reporting about this. Sony had to apologize in front of people instead of just an official statement. And you do understand that its the longest down time right? The matter got so serious that just to reassure people that no one lost their money, they had to put a one million dollar insurance policy on every person that had their identity stolen.
  Even if Anonymous really did take any info. They are hacktivist and will never take any innocent identity or any credit card details about them.
  Yeah wasn’t a big deal…
- Allen
  I’m not going to read all that. At least not right now, too busy. But from skimming I can see…
  you saying it’s okay for M$ to ban people because they were compensated…so like Sony didn’t give GREAT compensation? Because they gave a lot.
  Also Sony is the one that took it down for our securty. They saved faced….took the big plunge and decided to take down the network, even though ass hole fanboys like you would use that against them until the end of time.
  But in the end…Xbox is the one that more problems this year than PSN. Xbox is the one who’s customers lost real world money….but you just overlook everything. And best of all; I’m not even saying $hit about Xbox. I’m saying use your own damn head and protect your own damn data because it doesn’t matter if you’re an Xbox gamer or Sony gamer or even if you’re a 4 star General at the Pentagon because no one is perfectly safe.
- Cool dude
  No one lost their money… They were all fully compensated.
  The banning and the phishing attacks only affected less than 0.10% of all the accounts of Xbox Live.
  Yeah, theres more events that has affected Xbox Live but try to combine all of them and compare the magnitude of Psn Hack + 93,000 accounts compromised. You’ll see who got affected the most.
- bozmanbeyond
  @ A113n first off Gaylo was to blame and I don’t know how many times I told you but I got a 800 msp game and 1 month of live free for that 2 week down time.
  Now about your thing referring to credit cards, I work for a rather large bank here in NY and we run into a lot of people who wind up seeing Xbox Live charges or MSP charges and they don’t even have Live accounts or even have a 360. This past holiday season we also have seen 4 large retail companies have a breach. (Due to privacy disclosures I can not say who they where.) Plus there is also those few shady gas stations where employees use their phones and take a picture of your card then sell the numbers to a guy over in Thailand. And then there are those who get hacked on a personal level and are dumb enough to have all their personal info on their PC.
  This is just not with MS. We also see a lot with iTunes and PSN charges and as well as plane ticket purchases form Dubai to Paris or other various locations over seas.
- Allen
  Dude, WTFE. You can just STFU.
  People LOST money….enough said. It doesn’t matter wha you say, that is totally not acceptable and cannot be overlooked lightly and it happend on more than one occasion.
  PSN data breach…Taken down for our protection. Great compensation paid. No one lost a dime, not even for a second and just in case anything did happen they gave free credit protection.
  And dude, you are blowing the data breach out of proportion. Let’s look at the consumer, how did the consumer get affect..Answer – I couldn’t play an online game or buy anything from the PS store for 3 weeks. I could still watch Netflix, browse the internet, watch Blu Rays and play single player games.
  That seems an aweful lot like the 2 weeks Xbox live was down in 2007.
  Now lets look at Xbox (1) Personal information was stolen (2) Money was taken from their accounts (3) Cards charged for more xbox live points (4) People banned for who knows how long and not able to do a thing. A lot like having all of xbox live down if you ask me…affecting those who we banned a lot like having the network down.
  So what if M$ compensated them. They are the one’s that lost money..personal information was known to be stolen and those who were banned couldn’t do a thing.
  And thanks for making this another battle when all I did was correct the dude and said use your head to protect your own fucking data.
  Fk Xbox – it’s a piece of $hit
- Allen
  I understand that Bozman, peeps need to chill about the PSN data breach and everyone AND I MEAN EVERYONE needs to try and make their own data safe because anyone can be hacked.
- Cool dude
  Yeah Allen, tell Sony to stop using AVG 2007 antivirus for free..
- Cool dude
  2007 was never a hack and your making it sound like that lol. Xbox Live was never breached while Psn has. And I dont think you can accept that fact.
njb
lol Anon splintered, y do u think they went after ppls card info. the majority wanted to just prove a point, some exploited the situation amd tried to cash in.
anyway, simple fact is that no1 is 100% safe, their is always a way in.
therapist
Username: Admin
Password: password
damn that was easy to hack xbox360
njb
lol, reminds me off school
you could just type commands in the CMD or play around with network settings in the control panel to bypass any blocks or restrictions the dumb technicians put on the school network
Paul
Poor Allen, he is still making things up in order to feel good about buying an overpriced POS3.
X
Poor xbots, still paying to play online only to get banned and get cod mp early, not free. Makes it even worse that they raised the price about a yr ago. Don’t forget how ms still makes their failboxs out of cheap plastic. So loud and a big power brick. I guess it’s so all you xbots can stick it up your asses.
- Cool dude
  Pfftt… are you truth? Cuz you seriously sound like him.
reality
Allen tries so hard it’s pathetic.
- Paul
  True, if only he put this much effort into real life he might get a girlfriend and actually have sex sometime.
Hoppsy
The fact of the matter is PSN was victim to a major major hack. In reality if anon decided to attack xbox or any other company / institution they would cause major problems. Could sony of had better security? Yes, would it of made a difference? No.
PSN’s hack was one of the largest scale hacks ever. it was really bad and ps3 fanboys should admit that.
Xbox fanboys need to understand that no credit card info was stolen. the security on that info was good enough and it was encrypted. not a single psn member lost money due to the hack. Thats not the case with security breachs on xbox sadly. smaller scale but more damage.
Xbox has huge piracy problems, hence a lot of the bannings, ps3 does not..
Xbox has way more holes in it for people to exploit, it may be on a smaller scale than ps3 but still we don’t pay for the service.
When PSN was hacked xbox fanboys acted with zero class, why do you think fans of the ps3 jump on you when we hear stories of bannings and hacks and security breaches? (and when i think about it we hear one of these stories every month) its been a while since PSN had a single issue in fact the last time was the major hack other than 1 day of maintenence a month or 2 back
- Allen
  Well said
- Cool dude
  Hey man, You know how much we hate each other right? You know how much crap you give to me right? Dont worry were still friends :)
  To prove to you that I have a Ps3 (Because you didnt believe me) and to prove to you that im just a friend. Ill gladly give you my Starhawk Beta early access code. (Got it from my UC3)
  Just reply with your Email address.
- Allen
  Please send to my battlelog account :-) I don’t mind giving you my e-mail but certainly not Reality and Paul. They’ll be asking me to join their butt buddy gang until the end of time. Plus people would be able to log in as me here.
- Cool dude
  I sent you a message.
- Allen
  Thanks, and I don’t hate you by any means, we are cool. We just really don’t see eye to eye on the subject of consoles.
  And thanks BTW, I haven’t had a chance to get UC3, I’m broke and all my time is taken up with Skryim and BF3 right now. I loved warhawk and will enjoy checking out the Beta early.
- Cool dude
  Ok, im not sure why you still havent replied yet but either way. Im just gonna give it to you.
- Allen
  What do you mean, on battlelog? I’d love to but all gaming sites are blocked here from work. I can log in about 45 more minutes, your cool; cool dude.
- Cool dude
  just check your account, ive sent it.
- Allen
  I did; thanks! Why aren’t you useing it though? Just because you love your Xbox online doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy Starhawk, it really has some unique gameplay. If it’s anything like Warhawk it will be tough at first.
- Cool dude
  I dont know. Im really an offline person when it comes to my Ps3. And my 360 is my multiplayer console.
  Its my choice :)
BIGRED15
I still regret cancelling my card when I found out about the ps3 breach. Even my bank said not to worry nothing was ACTUALLY taken. Yes ps3 got hacked. in scope it was massive. Deep within the issue however, it was minor and anonymous was merely proving a point. Now I don’t know much about Xbox nor do I read up on them (more important things to do) but if consumer indeed lost money that outweighs the time lost by ps3 owners by a long shot. And b4 Xbox fanboys think for one sec they are untouchable think again because these little hacks here and there prove Microsoft is one official statement against hacking and jailbreaking away from catching the allure of a group of brilliantly ominous hackers that could tear MS security apart in one swift blow.
Allen. I don’t know if u realize that u start probably a minimum of half of all flame wars on this site. I can’t really attest to ur tactics but I will agree that if people were less retarded and realized nothing is sacred then we wouldnt have a problem and Anonops would look like a mere bunch of blowhards.
- Cool dude
  “Allen. I don’t know if u realize that u start probably a minimum of half of all flame wars on this site.”
  Amen
- Allen
  Well written and yes I do start a lot of $hit. I really am trying to not rag as much and I say my comments from yesterday were not attacking. All I did is put Raven in his place and say that it doesn’t matter who you are. Xbox gamers and Sony gamers alike should take care to protect their own data because just as you said, no one is 100% safe and even the Pentagon was hacked.
Cool dude
Of course Ps3 has better hardware, It released a year later lol.
What do you mean theres not even that? Wut? Ahem halo 4?
Allen
This was a lot funnier before AOTFB changed the name from Paul. Damnit I wish they would stop doing that.
Allen
Ah hi Reality…nice to see you again Anti Fanboy 2.
reality
Isn’t hacking fun?
reality
Sorry to burst your bubble but I’m not anti fanboy 2.
Raven
Put me in my place by exgerating some live outage years ago that was caused by server issues that didn’t even effect everyone? Yeah, you got me, that was exactly like the psn outage…
Raven
But you are right, no one is completely safe on any system or website
Tuck
Dozens of comments on here and any xbox article from sony fans but nothing on the starhawk article, so much xbox envy
Allen
Oh but that’s not my e-mail, bla ha ha you think you are so smart. Go ahead and try it….
Allen
Every single one of my comments were just deleted, what’s up with that? Do e-mail addresses seriously offend that much?
- Allen
  Okay nevermind, I think the mushrooms in my burger were the psychedelic kind.
fuck microsoft
y we got to pay we already pay for net flix and the playstationdont