Sometimes because of the way children think, they tend to find ways around problems or maybe even spot potential problems that we would not have thought of. Maybe it’s because as we grow older we become more rational and logical, so thinking outside the box is not as easy as it once was.
That being said, it seems that a 5-year old by the name of Kristoffer Wilhelm von Hassel managed to discover a security flaw on the Xbox One which led to Microsoft not only acknowledging and fixing the bug, but rewarded the kid and his dad, who owns the Xbox One, with a bunch of games and a one year subscription to Xbox Live.
So what was this security flaw he discovered? It’s actually a pretty simple one and one that many might not have thought of. Naturally his dad had placed account restrictions on his Xbox One and when the kid tried to access it, he was prompted for a password. Since he did not know the password, he pressed the space bar a couple of times, hit enter, and for some reason or the other, he managed to get in.
Now he knew what he did wasn’t right and informed his dad of the issue, who then promptly called Microsoft to inform them of it. Microsoft then acknowledged the issue and has since listed the 5-year old on their page for Security Researcher Acknowledgements for Microsoft Online Services. Seems like young Kristoffer has something to put on his resume now.