Produce companies and retailers beware – there’s a first grade hacker on the loose…literally! Kristoffer Wilhelm von Hassel, a five year old in California, recently discovered a security flaw on his father’s Xbox One gaming console, causing some security researchers at Microsoft to turn their heads - or at least look down. You might want to double check your systems to make sure he’s not targeting fruits and veggies next… ;)
Imagine waking up one morning to find out your new top secret apple project is now in the hands of a five year old. Candy apples for everyone! What if you’re a retailer? Do you really want your data to be seen and used by a kid? Have you seen how they play with toy cars and Lego blocks?
All jokes aside, this isn’t Kristoffer’s first time breaking through security. If you’re not sweating bullets yet, buckle your seatbelts. According to ABC News, Kristoffer was able to access his father’s account simply by typing in a bad password, which led to a password verification screen. After that, all he had to do was hit a few space keys, then enter, and voila – he was in. And I thought I was being sneaky just by grabbing cookies from the cookie jar as a kid.
ABC News also reports that when Kristoffer was one year old, he was able to get past the toddler lock on a cell phone just by holding down the home button. Now that’s dedication. His father, who works in computer security, was impressed by his son’s tech skills. “He’s figured out vulnerabilities 3 or 4 times,” he said.
Eventually, Microsoft came up with a solution for the vulnerability and acknowledged the boy on its website in a list of security researchers that helped make the company’s online services more secure. Microsoft also gave him four games, $50, and a year-long subscription to Xbox Live. Lucky!
So the next time you’re about to go to sleep at night, you might want to check up on your company’s security systems one last time. You might be reporting to a five year old the next morning…
