Five-year old boy cracks Xbox Live security flaw

A five-year old boy from San Diego has cracked a flaw in the Xbox Live sign-in process that allowed him to play any game he wanted to on his dad’s account.

Kristoffer Von Hassel was attempting to break into his father’s account when he stumbled across the security hole. He discovered that by simply entering the wrong password, Xbox Live would take him to a password vertification screen where just typing in space keys and hitting enter would grant him access.

Speaking to KGTV, upon discovering the flaw Von Hassel said "I was like yea!".

Upon discovering his son had been breaking into his Xbox Live account without permission, his father Robert Davies reported the matter to Microsoft who quickly fixed the flaw and also offered a reward.

Von Hassel was given four games, $50 and a year-long subscription to Microsoft’s Xbox Live service. He has also been listed on the company’s website on a list of security researchers acknowledged for making its services more secure.

"We’re always listening to our customers and thank them for bringing issues to our attention," said a Microsoft spokesperson.

"We take security seriously at Xbox and fixed the issue as soon as we learned about it."