Xbox password flaw exposed by five-year-old boy

Xbox password flaw exposed by five-year-old boy: A five-year-old boy who worked out a security vulnerability on Microsoft’s Xbox Live service has been officially thanked by the company.

Kristoffer Von Hassel, from San Diego, figured out how to log in to his dad’s account without the right password.

Microsoft has fixed the flaw, and added Kristoffer to its list of recognised security researchers.In an interview with local news station KGTV, Kristoffer said: “I was like yea!”

The boy worked out that entering the wrong password into the log-in screen would bring up a second password verification screen.

Kristoffer discovered that if he simply pressed the space bar to fill up the password field, the system would let him in to his dad’s account.