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March 5, 2008 Link to this post
A Cautionary Tale
oriol003 wanted us to know about a news post at Grunts R Us - apparently, a significant number of the Recon winners from the Valentines Day playlist have been 'hacked', and had their accounts stolen. (I have no way of verifying this information - but for the purposes of this newspost, we'll assume it's true.) I don't work for Microsoft, and I'm not privy to huge amounts of backroom information - but the info I DO have (not about these cases specifically, but about older ones) suggests that most of the time, 'hacking' entails guessing a simple password. If you don't want your Xbox Live account stolen... make sure your password is secure. (That doesn't only mean not telling anybody. That means following basic password safety rules - don't use real words, don't use facts about your life (like your birthday), mix lower/uppercase letters, add numbers, make sure it's long enough, and so on.) It is very, very, VERY unlikely that these accounts are being taken over by tricking representatives at the Xbox Live service center - and it's even MORE unlikely that someone is actually 'hacking' into the LIVE database and accessing the accounts directly. Be safe, and your chances of being on this list are about the same as your chances of being hit by lightning... twice. Update: Anton P. Nym adds a bunch of useful information about protecting yourself in this forum post. (Louis Wu 12:31:05 UTC)
