Shitty tabloid The Sun has a CRIME EXCLUSIVE on its front page, warning Britain of a terrifying new problem -- Xbox Cyber Fraud!
While the Sun claims thieves have "hacked" into Xbox Live accounts, it's nowhere near as scary. It's actually the same kind of phishing scam that most smart gamers (and Internet users in general) should already be aware of. Basically, enterprising criminals ask users for credit card and personal details in exchange for things like free Microsoft points. Obviously, there are no free points, and the idiot user has just taken part in his own robbery.
Of course, since you'd have to be a moron to believe anything printed in The Sun, I dare say the paper's readers are exactly the kind of people who need to be warned about phishing. It would be better for The Sun to warn people sensibly and effectively, but that would mean they can't use words like "cyber" and "hacking" in their articles, which isn't fun at all. All British tabloid journalists wish they were in The Matrix, you see.
Microsoft, for its part, promises that security is still of the "utmost importance" despite The Sun's SHOCKING exclusive story on the Cyberterror Hackvampires. This whole thing serves as the cue for an obvious reminder, though -- do not, under any circumstances, give your personal info to some random guy on Xbox Live, for crying out loud!
The Sun warns of 'Xbox cyber fraud' [CVG]
Contest:
10:30 AM on 11.22.2011
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This is a newspaper famous for having boobs on page 3.
Aliens do seem to care about the Olympics, we have our own little alien organising the whole thing!
Come on, have some faith in people. I'm sure that deposit is just taking a few extra days because of the holiday season.
And that email from UPS saying I had a package and had to open the attached file to claim it seemed legit too.
[urlhttp://www.insidegamingdaily.com/2011/10/14/xbox-live-accounts-hacked-in-the-name-of-fifa-love/[/url]
http://www.insidegamingdaily.com/2011/10/14/xbox-live-accounts-hacked-in-the-name-of-fifa-love/
Well I am guessing by using social engineering likely calling costumer service ofcourse there is also the technique where they contact you instead.
But likely this case they were calling up costumer service pretending to be you by trying to bullshit their way through the conversation using guesswork and nudging costumerservice into the right direction...Untill they have the right amount of information to take over your account.
They likely googled your nickname before but the really skilled ones can go in blind...
Going on 2 months w/o my live account and it's really starting to suck. I'd like to know why Microsoft has such a terrible turnaround on helping customers. If it's because there's so many, then why hasn't there been some sort of formal/public announcement? Was MS hacked? I didn't even know it could happen until one day I'm disconnected from live, go back to my dashboard and everything is in Russian.
Still waiting for the charges to be reversed. You'd really think an alarm would trigger on Live if someone suddenly accessed an account half the world away from where it always logs in on, but it's possible the hackers were using a proxy.
Either way, that's it. Once I get my account back, no more credit cards on file. It will be all point cards, if anything.
I lol'ed.
Is every newspaper with boobs in it the equivalent to toilet paper? It's the same here in austria.
@UltorOscariot:
Oh, shit just got real I suppose.
I have a hard time taking a story seriously when they need to include a shot of J.Lo feeling herself up next to it.
As was previously mentioned, it had a pretty bad spree not too long ago.
My GOD!
Yeah that is one hell of a double standard.
Next time I need cosplay goods, I shall call this costumer service of which you speak, and prompt them to give me costumer details.
Awesome word. It's now my word of the day!
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=442986
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=449608
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=451055
Seems I got off relatively easily though. The user only used the 1600 points I had on hand and used them to buy tracks for 'LIPS'. Short of now having 8 LIPS achievements tied to my account and the missing 1520 points, I'm not doing too bad.
Still doesn't mean I have access to my account while MS 'investigates'. If they get done in the 25 days they promised, I'll be surprised.
Funny how SONY got a ton of flak for the hack back in Spring, but I, nor anyone else I've spoke with, was negatively affected outside of the PSN outage itself. Own a 360 half the time, bam, someone goes for a karaoke ride with mine.
Also, Jim, does the Sun suggest these hackers are homosexual or immigrant vampires?