Microsoft Says a Chinese 'Gaming Service' Company Is Hacking Xbox Accounts (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Since 2015, a Chinese gaming website has been hacking Xbox accounts and selling the proceeds on the open market, according to a complaint filed by Microsoft in federal court on Friday. On its website, iGSKY presents itself as a gaming service company, offering players a way to pay for in-game credits and rare items -- but according to Microsoft, many of those credits were coming from someone else's wallet. The complaint alleges that the company made nearly $2 million in purchases through hacked accounts and their associated credit cards, using purchases as a way to launder the resulting cash. On the site, cheap in-game points are also available for the FIFA games, Forza Horizon 3, Grand Theft Auto V, and Pokemon Go, among others.

Comments

New??

[rholtzjr]

They have been doing this on WoW for about a decade. Two phase authentication? Access control list by device?

Re:New??

[Cmdln Daco]

And it's a pain in the ass for us Casual WoW players.

Blizzard acts like our accounts are valuable Fort Knoxlike entities.

It's just a game, and you make it a hassle to get into the world, Blizzard.

I would bet, though, that Blizzard makes millions of $$ from players who take it too seriously. Hence their authentication hassles.

Re: New??

[rholtzjr]

The one and only time it happened to me they restored everything including guild bank and all toons. The only hassle was all items were restored to the mailbox so you spent a couple of days putting everything back where it was. Since an authenticator was added, zero hacks. None of my Blizzard games have been hacked since the authenticator, but that may change sometime in the future.

Hassle?, very little compared to what happens when you get hacked. Really the only disconcerting experience was logging on naked in the middle of nowhere.

Re:MacOS is not Linux

[BarbaraHudson]

Hint: The OS wars are over. They died of boredom. It's just not interesting any more. Sorry, but the world has moved on, and an OS is just another boring commodity, easily replaced, with less and less to get excited over with each new iteration.

Q: So who won the OS wars?
A: Who gives a sh*t ...

I love PokÃf©mon Go!

[drinkypoo]

Come on, Slashdot. What year is it?

What's the Point of Playing

[Captain Ramage]

What's the point of playing a game if you aren't going to try to beat it? I don't mean beat it by buying your way to success, I mean beat it by using your game skills to build what you need to beat it.

Re:What's the Point of Playing

[Xest]

The same reason people cheat in video games. Some people are such desperate failures at life that they'll go to any extreme to try and convince themselves that they're not just a waste of oxygen.

Meanwhile, everyone else knows the truth.

Re:What's the Point of Playing

[tlhIngan]

What's the point of playing a game if you aren't going to try to beat it? I don't mean beat it by buying your way to success, I mean beat it by using your game skills to build what you need to beat it.

Because games are supposed to be fun, not work. If some idiot level designer makes a boss battle so unfair that after a few attempts I give up in frustration, then it's likely I'll put the game away and never to play it again. Maybe there's a good reward, but I do have a lot of other things to do with my life that the urge to complete the game must battle with the frustration of dying at the same spot for the Nth time.

And yes, I know I'm no good at games. I play on easy mode for that reason - it gives me the best chance of getting through the game. Especially since a lot of games seem to rely on "cheap deaths" or "if you don't hit the button at the exact millisecond, you're too late".

And no, I don't give up easily, but when my time is limited, I expect to make progress. If you have a hard boss battle, OK, but I do expect to see some progress - perhaps I die a little later a few rounds later after figuring out the right moves, and maybe I get all the way so it's at 1% health and die. That's progress. But then if I get stuck at that 1% for the entire hour of my next session, then it's frustrating and I may decide to put it down and do something else - nothing sucks more than spending 5 minutes dodging around and all that only to get screwed over at the end and have to repeat the same old same old over and over again.

Of course, I also find buying my way to victory distasteful and have ranked a lot of freemium games as "don't play as you MUST spend money". But luckily, there are a number of games where money is completely optional - if you have determination you can progress and earn your gold or diamonds and get your way through. Funny enough how the latter games generally are better and have added replay value.

MFA

[CimmerianX]

Could we please get 2 factor on some of these services that are directly connected to our wallets......please....

Re: MacOS is not Linux

[kurkosdr]

I wouldn't call the OS a commodity when it enforces tight vendor lock-ins.

Re: MacOS is not Linux

[BarbaraHudson]

I suspect that many of us will not use the 3 shells. Expect much profanity as people collect "bad language violation" tickets to wipe their asses.

Re: MacOS is not Linux

[BarbaraHudson]

I wouldn't call the OS a commodity when it enforces tight vendor lock-ins.

Lock-in has nothing to do with whether something is a commodity or not. Example: roundup-ready corn. Last I looked it was both tightly protected via patents and restrictive contracts, and a commodity. Ditto for books, music, movies, smartphones, etc.