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5-year-old discovers huge Xbox One security vulnerability

Published Apr 4th, 2014 1:37PM EDT
Xbox One Security Vulnerability

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Out of the mouths of babes… come the secrets of the video game industry, apparently. San Diego news station KGTV reports that five-year-old Kristoffer Von Hassel stumbled upon a blatant security flaw while playing on his family’s Xbox One, giving him access to games his parents thought they had restricted.

Kristoffer, the young programmer-to-be, attempted to log in to his father’s Xbox Live account, but entered an incorrect password. A second verification screen followed, and by hitting the space button several times and pressing enter, he was able to access his father’s account.

When Kristoffer’s father, Robert Davies, found the boy logged in to his account, he asked him how he’d managed to do it. Kristoffer repeated the process for his father, demonstrating the vulnerability. Davies, who works in computer security, recorded footage of the bugged process and reported the issue to Microsoft, who rewarded the father-son duo with four games, $50 and a year-long subscription to Xbox Live.

Microsoft claims that the vulnerability has since been resolved.

Jacob Siegal
Jacob Siegal Associate Editor

Jacob Siegal is Associate Editor at BGR, having joined the news team in 2013. He has over a decade of professional writing and editing experience, and helps to lead our technology and entertainment product launch and movie release coverage.