5-year-old boy finds security flaw in Xbox Live

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By Associated Press | Updated: 7 April 2014 11:08 IST

A 5-year-old San Diego boy has outwitted the sharpest minds at Microsoft - he's found a backdoor to the Xbox.

Kristoffer Von Hassel managed to log in to his father's Xbox Live account. When the password log-in screen appeared, Kristoffer simply hit the space button a few times and hit enter.

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Robert Davies tells KGTV-TV that just after Christmas he noticed his son playing games he supposedly couldn't access.

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Davies, who works in computer security, says he reported the issue to Microsoft, which fixed the bug and recently listed Kristoffer on its website as a "security researcher."

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A Microsoft statement says "we take security seriously" and thanks customers for highlighting issues.

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It's not the Kristoffer's first triumph. At a year old, he bypassed a cellphone toddler lock by holding down the "home" button.

Notably, the Xbox One was only rolled out to 13 countries in its first phase of roll-out. In March, Microsoft finally announced the next-phase of roll-out. Starting September 2014, 26 new markets will get retail availability of the Xbox One console, including India. For now, pricing details and exact launch dates have not been disclosed.

Making the announcement via a post on the official Xbox blog on Tuesday, Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi said, "It's time to ensure even more fans around the world can enjoy Xbox One. So today we're proud to share that it will be available in 26 additional markets in September this year. We'll have much more to share at a local level towards the end of April, so stay tuned."

Full list of 26 new countries in September phase of Xbox One global roll-out: Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia , Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and UAE.

 

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