Earlier this year on the 17^th April Sony’s PSN suffered an unauthorised intrusion into the system which resulted in the network being disabled for a long period of time, and the personal details of users were acquired. Today, Microsoft and Xbox Live users have been a victim of a similar act.

The system was breached by an organised phishing scam that sent out emails to Xbox Live users advertising free Microsoft Points. Users would then be asked to enter their account information and if they complied, those behind the scam would be able to login to each person’s account and access their credit card details. It has been reported that these scam artists took small amounts of money from each user so as not to raise alarm easily; around £95 (or $150) from each person. Microsoft are unsure how many people have been affected but it appears to be in the thousands. The company have stated that they are doing the best they can to “resolve any unauthorised changes to their accounts,” and advise users to never give out their login details for Xbox Live.

Of course this has not stopped newspaper, The Sun, from slapping ‘XBOX CYBER FRAUD’ on the front page of today’s paper.  The article also had claimed that users had their accounts ‘raided’. I guess they were running out of stories to print today.

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