Xbox Live Gamers have been hit by a new Stream of hacking attacks – now and this time, its most worryingly, targeting their accounts on Xbox Live. as it was known as most secure and unhackable online gaming service, this latest news will be verymuch depressing Microsoft !.
New Reports are Rapidly Coming out that when Xbox Live users are checking their Credit/Debit card and account statements from Banks, which they made use to pay their Xbox Live subscriptions, and they are discovering new payments which they did not make, generally over a period of few months, which was used to buy Microsoft Points (the service's currency which enables users to purchase extra downloadable content, games and in-game objects) which were then cashed in to buy downloadable content from EA Sports – specifically Ultimate Team Packs for its games FIFA 12, Madden and NBA.
This Latest News of Xbox Live users being scammed is being widely reported as an instance of phishing – which is most noted on the front page of the Sun. But Based on scientific or professional observations evidence from game forums makes it clear that these are not simple cases of phishing.
It's easy to see why the scammers selected to purchase Ultimate Team Packs from EA Sports using their ill-gotten gains: they present the ideal means of turning virtual money into real money. Clearly, EA Sports donot have any means of tracking such transactions, otherwise it would be easy to identify the scammers. security professionnals have asked the company that will they introduce any such transaction-tracking in the future. Given that the company has actually profited unwittingly from this scam, it clearly has an obligation to embark on a full and frank inquiry into what happened.
Microsoft has issued an official statement, insisting that Xbox Live's security had not been breached (even though there was no credible suggestion that it had). It added: "In this case, a number of Xbox Live members appear to have recently been victim of malicious 'phishing' scams (ie online attempts to acquire personal information such as passwords, user names and credit card details by purporting to be a legitimate company or person). 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." It went on to detail a number of ways to guard against phishing, which can be viewed here.
Perhaps ironically, the EA Sports website has a detailed page highlighting how devotees of FIFA Ultimate Team can detect and sidestep phishing attempts. There were also reports in October that gamers were having trouble accessing EA Sports' FIFA 12 servers, although this was thought to be due to technical glitches and bugs in the then newly released game. But it is not beyond the realms of possibility that those problems coincided with a hacking attack.
