Xbox exploit potentially cost Microsoft $3.2 million
The big news to come out of the weekend is around a huge exploit on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 site that may have resulted in millions of dollars in theft. It is unclear what the damages are as Microsoft is currently looking into the situation.
A hacker named Dark recently posted a guide on The Tech Game forums revealing an exploit showing how to generate a URL leading to the official Xbox 360 site. This URL basically tricks the site into auto generating an Xbox Live code that can be redeemed for Microsoft Points.
The URL exploit only rewards 160 MS points at a time. However, Dark also created a generator that would automatically crank out as many codes you set it to. Just by going through the pages, it appears many users have redeemed tens of thousands of points through this exploit.
According to unconfirmed sources, the reported loss to Microsoft has been estimated to be around $1.2 million. The Xbox site was pegged up until today when Microsoft brought down the service.
Users have reported experiencing 404, server communication error messages due to the high volume of traffic going to the Xbox site. Recent unconfirmed sources report that all of the possible codes were exhausted before Microsoft brought the service down on the official Xbox site.
With over 10,000 possible codes, damages could add up to as much as $3.2 million to Microsoft if completely exhausted. Since the points were obtained using a URL exploit on the official Xbox site, it may be difficult for Microsoft to distinguish between the stolen codes from the legitimately obtained ones as they are both produced the same way.
More will be reported as the details become available.
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36 Responses to “Xbox exploit potentially cost Microsoft $3.2 million”
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March 9th, 2011
LoL 3.2 nice not congrats and many kudos to him fuck M1<r0$0$t. They deserve everything they get and will get soon too.
March 9th, 2011
i LOVE THIS not to the fact of “stolen goods” but to prove that xbox users even hate microsoft lol fuck those money grubbers or aka dictator corporation lol
March 9th, 2011
They owe Xbox users this money. Charging to play online, and hiking the price for no reason??
I’m glad the Xbox community got some bollocks and ripped Microsoft off for a change.
March 9th, 2011
MS should take this hacker to the cleaners the Sony way.
March 9th, 2011
FFS
Typical. .the PS3 fanboys condoning hacking when the victim is M$
ALL hacking is bad no matter who it’s against. .I say if they find a way to work out who cheated (probably those with several hundred $/£s in there accounts) then invalidate the credits and ban them from LIVE.
I’d say the same thing if anyone were to do it on PSN.
More than anything hacking and piracy will only ever be a bad thing for genuine gamers. .screw them all
March 9th, 2011
I’m at a loss as to why nicking MS points is bad for gamers Gods.
March 9th, 2011
I also hate hackers I hope not everyone jumps on the MS deserve it because they make so much money bandwagon.
On the subject I don’t get this, hate MS because they make money, I’m pretty sure all companies are out to do one thing and that’s make money. So MS charge for xbox live it’s obviously not that much of an issue as millions pay it.
Can you honestly say Sony wouldn’t charge for playing if they hadn’t used free play as a marketing tool to sell the PS3? Or do you truly believe that at Sony HQ, the board are sat around talking about how they’ve made enough money let’s save the gamers some.
Sadly every free thing we get or social offer is designed purly to keepnus loyal to or buy into a brand, it certainly isn’t because they care.
March 9th, 2011
pirates/hackers can burn in hell. I have never supported piracy (360 or PS3). I even told Ivan years ago to back off with all his piracy links for PSP and 360.
on the other hand, I also don’t support the fact that Microsoft force ppl to pay to use their own internet to play online <- the most basic and standard feature in today's gaming.
They also increase the price for no reason..what kind of bullshit is that? I don't play my 360 more often because i'm limited to offline play and that also limits me on the amount of achievements I can get as half of the achievements on most game are online-based. Also, why arent the Gold memberships attached to the console instead of having each member pay for Gold?
March 9th, 2011
” So MS charge for xbox live it’s obviously not that much of an issue as millions pay it.” and millions can’t afford it.
March 9th, 2011
@navyste
Sony went with what is the norm and standard for online gaming. Online gaming has been free on PC, PS2, PS3, Dreamcast, Wii, DS, PSP, Smartphones.
They only company charging for it is MS and here you are supporting it and making it seems that as is Sony is the going out of norm to increase their sales but in reality it is M$ who is being the odd man here to increase the money on their pocket.
Sony is not only giving us online play at no extra cost but they also support dedicated servers which cost $ to maintenance , run & track (not to mention that it takes physical space as well). So if Sony really wanted to be cheat, they could’ve gone with the same weak online architecture that MS using, which is cheap P2P online system.
March 9th, 2011
cheat = cheap*
March 9th, 2011
While I don’t like MS, I will not condone stealing.
This is akin to someone breaking into Gamestop and stealing XBL cards. Then going online and giving instructions on how to break into said store and steal for yourself.
March 9th, 2011
“I’m at a loss as to why nicking MS points is bad for gamers Gods.”
If it’s this easy to hack into Live, who’s to say that a similar exploit won’t allow someone to upload a newly written virus to brick consoles when someone goes into the store. Maybe just grab all users Credit Card info also.
Godless makes the point of saying, Hacking and piracy overall is bad for gamers. I agree with that sentiment.
March 9th, 2011
Roca
“Sony is not only giving us online play at no extra cost but they also support dedicated servers which cost $ to maintenance , run & track (not to mention that it takes physical space as well).”
This is all true, and for the moment is a good thing. .the problem is that once Sony or the game developer decide to end support for a game. Your screwed.
The advantage with the P2P system so long as you and just one other person on the planet decide to play a game you will be able to.
Just wait till the cost of running servers for lesser played games falls away and they start dropping support for them.
I personally prefer the P2P system and for now I have never had any problems with it. In fact I’ve always been really impressed by how well the online stuff works especially racing games and FPS.
I accept it has limitations, but for the games I play these limitations have never been an issue.
March 9th, 2011
@godless
All games with dedicated servers also have P2P options…. except MAG.
March 9th, 2011
There’s two types of servers for games.
Game servers that you play on (Dedicated and P2P)and
Connection servers that set up a connection between players.
A game that’s P2P as a game server can have it’s connection server taken out of service also.
We’ve seen this with sports titles especially. The company stops supporting online play with it’s titles to kind of nudge you into purchasing the current years title.
March 9th, 2011
how can you prefer P2P over dedicated servers?
every online gamer on earth knows all the benefits that dedicated servers bring to the overall experience. In fact, Epic delayed Gears 3 just to add dedicated servers as their previous 2 games’ online mode was a mess for months (until patched).
Dedicated servers losing support is hardly an issue. Socom (PS2) servers are still up and running while Halo 2′s online were shutdown. And as you can see P2P can also be shutdown.
Call of Duty: WaW on PC got boycott’ed by many gamers because it used P2P instead of dedicated servers… P2P is just a cheap way of offering online gameplay with no real benefit over dedicated servers.
March 9th, 2011
I can see why ms charges for the online but it’s not right.
People spend $60-$80 for a game that advertises online it should be available.
March 9th, 2011
the google ads are making this site crawl. It took me 15 seconds to load the page.
March 9th, 2011
Ncaissie,
What game did you end up getting?
I am very much against hacking/piracy.
March 9th, 2011
I haven’t yet. I’m going to wait and see how crisis 2 is.
I’m not in a hurrry because I’m short On time and have lots of (good) games to Finnish.
March 9th, 2011
It’s funny because I’m on a java web refreasher course and we were just talking about URL hacks yesterday.
March 9th, 2011
while XBL increase the price for basic online play. PSN+ users will get cloud saving which will be available tomorrow (firmware 3.60) at no extra cost.
“The new online storage feature allows gamers to store up to 150MB of game save data and a maximum of 1000 data files per PSN account. Users also have the ability to back-up “copy-prohibited save data”.
March 9th, 2011
I believe PSP2-PS3 gameplay is now possible.
March 9th, 2011
I think I’m finally sold on PSN+
@Roca
Did you get the Mortal Kombat demo?
March 9th, 2011
@Phranc
Yeah, pretty sweet
You get to play as Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Johnny Cage and Milenna.
You can tell the franchise is going back to its roots. The only thing missing whats the move list for Fatalities..
March 9th, 2011
I read that they have 1 fatality listed for each character (Demo) with the promise of 3-4 per character in the final game.
March 9th, 2011
I guess I couldn’t find the list for fatalities then. I’ll try it again today.
You should enjoy PSN+
They have MAG, Borderlands, ModNation and many other games under their “Full Game Trial” library.
March 9th, 2011
I’m not saying it’s the norm to charge but MS are making allot of money from it. Sony have used free play as a way to sell the ps3. Nothing wrong with that I’m sure it has sold a fair number of PS3s however the extra income from live helps finance advertising that ms spend allot on. All I’m trying to say is neither company cares about us they both want our money but they go different ways about it. The more money they make the more the invest the better for us, well in theory.
March 9th, 2011
“You can tell the franchise is going back to its roots. The only thing missing whats the move list for Fatalities..”
Actually that IS one of the roots of the franchise– you always had to figure out the fatalities
March 9th, 2011
@navysteve
Sony makes money in many other ways other than ripping its user based by charging for online play, which has been free since day 1, MS is the only greedy company charging for it. Why can’t XBL offer online for every and charge for all the extra stuff – like netflix, twitter, XBL discount, etc.
Sony makes money by charging devs for bandwith, Home Spaces & Advertisements, PSN+ membership fee (which cancels out XBL fee) and now with its Unlimited Streaming Music service. So Sony is still making as much money as they can but they aren’t going out of their way charging for stuff that’s free as a standard feature. and They aren’t doing that to sell console because online play on Playstation has been free way before the PS3 cameout. It’s been free on PSP and PS2 – they are just keeping the same model.
March 9th, 2011
Agree with Roca on this one. Online play should be free and they can easily make their money like PSN does.
Having sampled both LIVE and PSN, LIVE has all the same micro transaction stuff PSN has PLUS u pay to play online. Additionally, their games on demand prices are outlandishly expensive when I can go to EB’s or GAME and get it for a 1/3 of the price LIVE charges for a digital copy ….. go figure
For that reason, I simply don’t purchase from LIVE, whereas if they had reasonable prices (like Steam does, especially their sale items) I would purchase HEAPS. Needless to say PSN game prices and DLC can be expensive too, they are as bad as each other at times.
March 9th, 2011
“however the extra income from live helps finance advertising that ms spend allot on.”
How does that benifit you? I could see you defending it if they used it to make more games. Nope they give you Kinect. Enjoy!
March 9th, 2011
yep roca nailed it and spidey
March 9th, 2011
7 people do not understand the power of piracy errrm hacking.
March 9th, 2011
Goosebumps? Wft? LMAO sega are you a 10 yearold girl?
Lol jk