The Sun's cabal of sleazy liars hate being dismissed, and when they've got an axe to grind, they've demonstrated they'll pursue their victims with frightening obsession. Microsoft is the latest target, with the tabloid accusing it of a "cover up" after earlier claims of Xbox Live hack attacks were brushed off.
"Dozens of angry readers contacted [us] to tell how crooks bought Microsoft Points on their accounts to trade on to users in countries like China, Nigeria and Russia -- even though they didn't pass on any personal details or visit phishing websites." said the Sun, ignoring the fact that nobody would admit to being stupid enough to hand their personal details to a phisher.
The Sun backed up its "exclusive" story by taking old news reports from October, concerning FIFA 12 and phishing attempts committed on Xbox Live and EA.com. Wow, that's an amazing "exclusive" there!
Microsoft has yet again denied that Xbox Live has been hacked, but stated that it's examining Xbox Live refund policies for those who have been phished. Meanwhile, the Sun will continue to do what it does best -- be shit.
Now The Sun claims 'Xbox fraud cover up'... But it's still old news [CVG]
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Contest:
10:00 AM on 11.24.2011 | 
"MASSIVE TATTIES on Pages Front to Back!"
Shocked and appalled. Where am I supposed to look for Essex girls with big baps now? On the internet?! Pah! Don't make me laugh!
If they're looking for a hacking story, I'm pretty sure something of Sony's got hacked/breached this week.
Oh well...
Happy Thanksgiving!!!
The FIFA hacking is a real issue but it's not Sony so move along.
You should be thankful anything is being posted at all today.
See what i did thar?
Fuck em all... enjoy your paper.
Sorry heh :p
...The Sun still sux tho.
@mix Yeah, for sure. If this was Sony related it'd be a much different story. But since it's Microsoft... defense force to the rescue!
Unlike the Sony hack,hundreds of people (including 2 friends of mine) actually lost money from the FIFA 12 hack, yet MS is denying it ever happened.
I wonder if MS,and EA payed off the "Mainstream" media to sweep this one under the rug.
fuck the sun
When did JOURNALISM(!) become so boring and regular?
After I got fucked by them I did the only thing any logical, rational guy would do. Returned my entire Xbox 360 collection to Game$top for $800+ dollars and got a new PS3 slim with a bunch of exclusive games I never got a chance to play. All in all, I'm much happier and I don't need to put my credit card on file to use it properly. GG
Yeah, the Sun is crap, and I'm sure most of their article is garbage, but why are they the only ones pushing through on this?
Seems that way to me as well. I also never heard of a single Credit Card being compromised from the Sony intrusion.
@MCBattery
I've read a few stories on the front pages as well as from people in the forums here.
Double Standards I suppose.
The more I read, the more widespread it looks.
http://www.insidegamingdaily.com/2011/10/20/microsoft-responds-to-fifa-12-hacks/
People who haven't used their Live accounts in months or years claim to have been hit, so the phishing thing doesn't seem to hold water. And no, people without FIFA 12 have been hit.
Really strange that so few of the gaming blogs are bothering with this. Honestly, it looks like all Sony had to do was deny that anything happened when they got hacked, and the gaming press would have gone away.
MS gets hacked a lot, people get money stolen and says nothing about = Nobody says shit.
Sony gets hacked, NOBODY gets money stolen, and tells the world (though late) = People shit on Sony.
Hypocrisy and bias.
It'd take months to sift through the data before we'd start hearing about cross-platform blowback from the PSN scandal. I'm sure more than a few iTunea accounts were compromised as well.
Whatever the problem is, Sony related or not, I hoped it's sorted out quickly.
With regards to 'The Sun'? Well... throw enough shit and eventually you'll get a bullseye.
No. Apparently this year's FIFA included tradeable collectible cards as DLC.
You can't really judge the size of what happened, because most of the reports came from message boards. Only a handful of game news sites (like Eurogamer) bothered to report it.
Microsoft said a "limited number" of people contacted them, but you can't entirely trust that, as word fairly quickly spread that reporting to Microsoft meant your account would be suspended for a month for an investigation. At least some people, particularly if they only lost a little money, decided not to even report for that reason.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-10-14-xbl-accounts-hacked-to-buy-fifa-packs
Yet Amid a shit ton of proof,Microsoft still outright denies people are having their money stolen. I find it very odd this info never saw major news coverage? Hmmm
Awesome. Absolutely awesome. Never change, man.
But yeah, the people responsible for the PSN situation probably waited around for half a year for FIFA 12 to be released, despite the risk that a lot of those passwords would be changed in the meantime, then use them all at once. That's totally what I would do.
"Yet Amid a shit ton of proof,Microsoft still outright denies people are having their money stolen. I find it very odd this info never saw major news coverage?"
They never said that, you're putting words in their mouth. They simply said there was no evidence of hacking - which is potentially entirely true. Basically all they've said is that, as far as they're aware, it's not their fault.
Whether or not the media response to this story is fair is ultimately irrelevant. Personally I agree, this should be being reported more widely, but that's no reason to blatantly make shit up. Theorise conspiracies all you like, but don't bend the facts. That makes you just as guilty as you claim they are.
@MCBattery What proof? All we have is anecdotal evidence and nothing more. The Sony hack had a lot more then that including individuals who warned them about weaknesses. This issue needs more investigation to see if it's a real 'hack' as gamers claim or just overlap/phishing from previous incidents.
EA boards were compromised earlier this year with PII being exposed or whatever individuals used but no credit card data was taken according to them.
My own Xbox live account was hacked last month.... The hackers bought about $80 worth of MS points on my account. I called MS and they acted like it was an isolated incident. I got my money back, and MS is still "investigating".
I find it hard to believe that even the SUN would make this kind of story up from thin air.
"We are working with our impacted members directly to resolve any unauthorized changes to their accounts"
Right there they are admitting that "something" is going on,yet they still have not gone public warning that this is happening.
Be it a hack,or a phishing attack, the public at large has a right to know about this so they can take proper precautions.
:)
Someone tried to buy MS points on my account, but couldn't.
We cannot hold companies responsible for phishing attacks since that is OUR responsibility in today's age, not theirs. However if an actual 'hack' took place with someone compromising the LIVE servers go right ahead with your pitchfork, especially since they are downplaying it when eyebrow raisers like inactive accounts are claimed to have been hit.
Yes, but the proper precautions change depending on what the issue is. Since they aren't sure they're directing people to their standard Xbox Live safety page - which covers all the bases. Again, since (as far as they know) the problem is not on their end there's very little they can do other than cover the bases as usual.
If it's a hack that isn't on their side - they've no way of knowing until it goes public. In which case one would hope they would act accordingly.
By all means if it turns out to be MS that is at fault, then yes it's a serious internal issue for them. Until that's proven, however, it's difficult to gauge. They can't very well force people to keep their details safe and use multiple passwords for everything - that's just bloody common sense, as is not giving out your password. Not to mention there are plenty of warnings and information on account safety available at xbox.com.
I'm merely playing devil's advocate, but it would be silly to place blame at this stage without knowing all the facts. As such we can only draw judgements from the little that has been released so far.
I agree with you. Something happened, though the only thing we can definitely blame Microsoft for at the moment is downplaying what appears to be a widespread problem, and all corporations do that. Still, I very much hope that they are actively working to nail down exactly how this happened, even if they aren't at fault. If it's not on the Microsoft end, then there has to be some other link.
I'm more troubled by the response from the gaming press, or lack thereof. What we're seeing is that most gaming "news" sites really do nothing except repeat press releases, then tack their own opinions on at the end. An entity like Microsoft says "it's no big deal, move along now" and the gaming press shuffles its feet awkwardly and ambles on to something else. That a creature like The Sun, no matter how ill-intentioned, is one of the few major publications talking about this is kind of disheartening.