Pre-texting the cause of Xbox Live account issues
Earlier this week news broke of a supposed Xbox Live hack which ultimately turned out to be false, but we still didn't have specific answers. But Major Nelson, being the detective he is, dug deeper into the peculiar account hijacks and discovered what really happened. With the help of security researcher Kevin Finisterre Microsoft learned that the problem was nothing more than human error caused by the process of pre-texting. Pre-texting happens when individuals (those l33t haxorz) call customer support and "trick" them into giving out confidential account information. So, it wasn't as widespread as we all thought or due to some mysterious techie Windows Live ID account hack. It was just a few customer support reps being tricked into giving out account information. Don't fret though, Microsoft is committed to re-training their reps with the knowledge of this incident and hopes to prevent any further pre-texting headaches.
Gold star goes to Microsoft for acknowledging the problem, finding its source, and taking steps to correct it. As we all know, it takes a real man to admit he is wrong, but it takes a bigger man to fix his mistakes. Be safe kids!
