MS investigating Xbox credit card security risk

A report from Philadelphia’s Drexel University has claimed that users’ credit card details can be obtained from ‘wiped’ Xbox 360 hard drives.

This is supposedly achieved with what are described as basic hacking tools”. Researchers were able to access files and folders on a 360 HDD that had been through Microsoft’s re-formatting process.

Microsoft has unsurprisingly vowed to investigate the claims, though has stated that it finds them somewhat dubious.

We are conducting a thorough investigation into the researchers’ claims,” a Microsoft statement issued to Joystiq reads. We have requested information that will allow us to investigate the console in question and have still not received the information needed to replicate the researchers’ claims.

Xbox is not designed to store credit card data locally on the console, and as such seems unlikely credit card data was recovered by the method described.

Additionally, when Microsoft refurbishes used consoles we have processes in place to wipe the local hard drives of any other user data. We can assure Xbox owners we take the privacy and security of their personal data very seriously.”