Microsoft plugs Xbox One security hole discovered by five
A five-year-old boy who managed to accidentally hack into his father's Xbox One account has received gifts and an official thank you from Microsoft for helping the company discover the security hole.
San Diego's KGTV has the full story on Kristoffer Von Hassel, who managed to log in to his father's account without knowing the password that protected it. Apparently, after typing in an incorrect password, Von Hassel was able to get past a secondary password verification prompt simply by typing in nothing but space characters.
'I was like, 'yeah!'' Von Hassel said of his reaction upon first discovering the exploit.
Von Hassel's father, Robert Davies, a computer security researcher himself, was able to confirm the exploit in a video recorded just after Christmas, according to the report. It's unclear if the hole was limited to Microsoft accounts accessed through the Xbox One or extended to other potential login situations as well.
Kristoffer and his father reported the flaw to Microsoft, which has reportedly patched the vulnerability. For his trouble, Kristoffer received four Xbox One games, $50, a year's subscription to Xbox Live, and official acknowledgment as a March 2014 Microsoft Security Researcher.
'We're always listening to our customers and thank them for bringing issues to our attention,' Microsoft said in a statement. 'We take security seriously at Xbox and fixed the issue as soon as we learned about it.'
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