Some crafty hackers figured out something interesting recently, and that discovery led to the loss of about $1.2 million dollars.
The hackers worked with the algorithms that Microsoft uses for their codes — randomly generated as necessary — and figured out a way to tweak the codes just slightly in order to keep using them over and over and over. When done correctly about 160 Microsoft points were obtained, but as you might imagine this, done many times over, built up quickly.
When it was all said and done, over a million dollars in virtual goodies were acquired, including some for various avatar props, making it (what’s assumed to be) the biggest virtual points heist of all time…if such a thing existed.
Don’t go getting your hopes up that this is an existing gap in Microsoft’s Marketplace system, though. The company has already put a block on the hacker’s work and anyone else trying to score some freebies will likely be tracked and punished. Don’t be stupid people.
At the moment, it’s unknown whether those who took advantage of the woopsie were tracked and face punishment. It’s also not clear how Microsoft will go about adjusting things for the future to avoid such a thing happening again.
[Source: The Tech Game via Joystiq]
This is terrible. Not a huge fan of Microsoft, but I think if anymore of this happens, Microsoft will shut down or something. I hate the people who did it… and this goes to all of those hackers out there.
Comment by Alice JackSparrow King — March 12, 2011 @ 6:26 am