Hackers Can Gain Access to Your Credit Card Information from Old Xbox 360s

[Shawn Zipay]

It seems as though that even if you reformat your old Xbox 360's hard drive, that still isn't enough to prevent even the basic hackers from gaining access to your credit card information. This report comes from Kotaku as researchers at Drexel University made this rather concerning discovery. Ashley Podhradsky said that Microsoft is doing a "disservice" to customers by this huge privacy risk.

"Microsoft does a great job of protecting their proprietary information," she said. "But they don't do a great job of protecting the user's data."

Podhradsky, along with colleagues Rob D'Ovidio and Cindy Casey at Drexel and Pat Engebretson at Dakota State University, bought a refurbished Xbox 360 from a Microsoft-authorized retailer last year. They downloaded a basic modding tool and used it to crack open the gaming console, giving them access to its files and folders. After some work, they were able to identify and extract the original owner's credit card information.

We reached out to Microsoft for comment on this issue, but as of press time, they have not yet responded.

Podhradsky isn't even a gamer, she says. For seasoned modders and hackers, the process might be even easier.

"A lot of them already know how to do all this," she said. "Anyone can freely download a lot of this software, essentially pick up a discarded game console, and have someone's identity."

So what can you do if you need or want to get rid of your old system? Your best bet would be to try and hook the hard drive up to your PC and use a HDD sanitization program as reformatting will not be enough.

[CptainCrunch]

Re: Hackers Can Gain Access to Your Credit Card Information from Old Xbox 360s

Yep. There are a ton of free programs on the internet that will do a DoD level erase.

Better yet, if you are throwing the xbox away, take out the hard drive and physically destroy it. Throw it out a few weeks later.