Xbox Live possibly hacked. 48 Million user passwords posted online

It happened to Sony a few years back and now Microsoft may have felt the wrath of hackers too. The 6.8GB of data posted on Pastebin by a hacker going by the name of Reckz0r contains 48 million email addresses and passwords for Xbox Live accounts. As of now this is still a rumour as Microsoft have yet to confirm or deny the hack however looking back over Reckz0r’s tweets it wouldn’t be the first time he hacked a major corporation. Only 4 days ago he claimed to have hacked CNN and posted fake news articles on the CNN website. Hacking CNN is one thing, but hacking Microsoft – the company that practically owns the internet is a whole other ball game. Since Sony got hacked you would assume Microsoft took measures to make their user base data more secure yet Reckz0r claims all the passwords were in plain text format and not even encrypted. Furthermore, message boards across the web have people frantically searching for their own email address amongst the 48 million posted online and as of yet nobody has been able to find any email address that matches a genuine Xbox Live user account.

Regardless of whether or not this is an elaborate hoax by a disgruntled Xbox gamer upset at the Xbox One reveal, this is still a major blow for Microsoft. Even if Microsoft announce it was fake people will still start thinking long and hard about buying a console that requires an internet connection to function. If it really does happen during the Xbox One life how will that effect gamers who can’t get online? How deep could a hacker go into the console’s infrastructure? With the Kinect always on and always listening, who knows, perhaps a hacker could be watching you in your own home.

Don’t panic just yet though. Microsoft have yet to comment on this supposed hacking. However to be safe, we would recommend you change your Xbox Live password.