Phantasy Star Universe Xbox 360 Hacking Status
If you are a Phantasy Star Universe player on the Xbox 360, then you might want to know the lengths that some have gone to hack into accounts. Any RPG-like game such as PSU is bound to have built-in flaws that can be taken advantage of - these flaws are considered glitches and the use of them is considered cheating. This isn't the issue here, however. The issue is much more serious, and breaks several laws.
Basically, these hackers obtain the email address associated with your Xbox Live account. In the most recent case, the Xbox Support team gave a hacker someone's personal information. Now, obviously the support team thought they were speaking with the owner of the account. In reality it was a hacker pretexting the call center to get the email address associated with the gamertag. Pretexting is illegal under federal law (more information on pretexting is available at the Federal Trade Commission web site here).
Once the hacker obtains your email address they will use a brute force hacking program or script to change the password. Once the password has been changed they can recover your Xbox Live account to their Xbox login to PSU - from there they can do anything with your characters and items. Everything from wiping out all of your items to resetting your character levels to one.
So what can you do if you don't want to be hacked? Keep your email address confidential, keep your password strong, and call 1-800-4MY-XBOX to have them disable the password reset feature on your account. While the problem is not exactly widespread (only a handful of account have been hacked), the implications are harsh. If you have been hacked or feel you are in danger, call Xbox Support and demand they increase their security measures. If the game is not secure, people will not play.
Comments
I still think Microsoft needs to revamp their system ever sice they added the new auto bot to direct calls there have been problems. For any one to be able to call and get small details on an account that has a credit card and other personal info is pretty sad. I hope they fix it and do something for those who lost everything
I fail to see how this is a PSU specific issue when it clearly resides on Microsoft’s end. When in PSU does the player steal your account, how does this mysterious hacker get your email address? Does the cheater use any in game function to contact Microsoft and grab the account info?
The answer is never. This article is poorly written and calls out a problem that does not exist for a specific product. While I agree Microsoft has some issues to sort out with their support agents, I fail to see how this is in any way related to SEGA or PSU.
Hi Random. The article was written when several PSU accounts where hacked into, via a method called pretexting at the Xbox Live customer service level. Nowhere in the article did I say it was SEGA’s or PSU’s fault. PSU is at the center of the article only because it was the game that was hacked. The moral of the story resides in the final paragraph. Thanks for the comments.