Xbox Ent. Awards Site Security Breach & "High-Profile" Accounts Hacked

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Source : Xbox Entertainment Awards Site Security Breach Exposes Voters' Details

What's more, the list also included their real names, email addresses, and gamertags, meaning the personal info could easily be used by malicious individuals to steal their identities.

Microsoft has revealed a statement about this error, saying that it's taken the website offline to investigate a technical issue.

 

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RE: Xbox Entertainment Awards Site Security Breach & "High-Profile" Accounts Hacked

Source : Microsoft confirms 'high-profile' employee Xbox Live accounts hacked
The hack used SSNs in a "stringed social engineering" attack involving another company

As more of the story about the simultaneous cyber attack and real-world "Swatting" carried out against security researcher Brian Krebs comes to light, one of the significant details has the reported targeting of Microsoft employees for hacking. Allegedly, the hackers who targeted Krebs did so because he helped to reveal the method by which they have been compromising the accounts of "Microsoft employees who work on the Xbox Live gaming platform," Krebs writes. The method apparently involves acquiring and then utilizing the employees' social security numbers along with some social engineering to obtain (and apparently then sell) access to those accounts.

"ATTACKERS ARE TARGETING HIGH-PROFILE MICROSOFT EMPLOYEES BY SOCIAL ENGINEERING OTHER COMPANIES."

In a statement given to The Verge, Microsoft confirmed that "a handful of high-profile Xbox LIVE accounts held by current and former Microsoft employees" have in fact been compromised. However, Microsoft denies that it in any way collects or utilizes SSNs in conjunction with Xbox Live accounts. Instead, the SSNs are apparently used by a third party in some way, and it was actually information garnered from that company which allowed the hackers to gain access to Microsoft employee accounts.