Report: Cyber fraud hits thousands of Xbox gamers

gallery

Thousands of Xbox Live gamers have been fooled by fraudsters to hand over their account details, in what appears to be a widespread phishing campaign.

In the UK, gamers had lost an average of £100 and in some cases had been robbed of over £200, The Sun reported.

In one case, emails were sent to players linking to a website purportedly offering free Microsoft points to buy games with. They were then prompted to enter their login details.

The criminals used stolen details to access accounts to both acquire funds and gain info on other Xbox Live gamers for further social engineering.

Gamers only became aware of the account hijacking when they were locked out.

Microsoft admitted it appeared people had been hit by a phishing scam. As a result it was working with affected customers to investigate any potential account breaches and resolve them.

Games companies have been battered by scammers and hackers over the past year.

The most recent victim was Steam, which had its own infrastructure compromised. The company admitted encrypted credit card information has been accessed.

Sony was the most significant victim after breaches led to 100 million users' data going missing.

Nintendo and Bethesda were also hit, as gaming companies proved to be a popular place for hackers. Gaming firms hold a vast amount of useful information, including credit card info.

Email to a friend

Print this page