Earlier this week news broke of a supposed Xbox Live hack which ultimately turned out to be false, but we still didn't have specific answers. But Major Nelson, being the detective he is, dug deeper into the peculiar account hijacks and discovered what really happened. With the help of security researcher Kevin Finisterre Microsoft learned that the problem was nothing more than human error caused by the process of pre-texting. Pre-texting happens when individuals (those l33t haxorz) call customer support and "trick" them into giving out confidential account information. So, it wasn't as widespread as we all thought or due to some mysterious techie Windows Live ID account hack. It was just a few customer support reps being tricked into giving out account information. Don't fret though, Microsoft is committed to re-training their reps with the knowledge of this incident and hopes to prevent any further pre-texting headaches.Gold star goes to Microsoft for acknowledging the problem, finding its source, and taking steps to correct it. As we all know, it takes a real man to admit he is wrong, but it takes a bigger man to fix his mistakes. Be safe kids!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-23-2007 @ 10:27PM
raymond said...
screw gold star to microsoft man. gold star to Major Nelson.
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3-24-2007 @ 3:43AM
Tim said...
how do you figure major nelson deserves something? Yeah he told us. But he tells us lots of stuff. He didn't DO anything. This Kevin Finisterre guy did it.
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3-24-2007 @ 12:35PM
Kalroy said...
Tim: "how do you figure major nelson deserves something? Yeah he told us. But he tells us lots of stuff."
Right there. That's why Major Nelson deserves a gold star. He's been a great boon to the gaming community, one that both Sony and Nintendo should've emulated. We find stuff out from Heely's buddy long before we would have found it out through press releases or old media outlets.
Gold Star Major Nelson!
Kalroy
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3-25-2007 @ 11:15AM
Mike Pernecky said...
Yeah now they just need to make sure all their trainers can speak Indian fluently to get the message across to all their support people. I don't think I've ever spoken to a person in the USA when calling the tech support line.
But I guess that's why LIVE is only $50/yr instead of $150/yr. :(
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4-04-2007 @ 1:11PM
Christopher said...
Gold Star to MS and Xbox/Xbox Live in particular... Sorry, I don't think so. First, how can anyone appluad a tech support orginzation where the reps have no unique identifiers; There reps only give first names with no last name, no badge number, no id number, nothing. Heck they won't even give our the call center they are in or even what country it is in.
No big deal right ... well, so when a rep hangs up on you, or another says THEY NEED YOU TO GIVE THEM YOUR WINDOWS LIVE PASSWORD IN ORDER TO FIX YOUR ACCOUNT (they are really fixing their rep security issues), or another refuses to give you a supervisor after almost 2 hrs going through the aforementioned issues, YOU HAVE NO WAY TO INDENTIFY THEM!
Great job security, treat the customer like there worthless with the peace of mind you can never identify them
... REALLY A GOLD STAR, SORRY I DON'T AGREE!
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