Rumor: Xbox Live Virus in Circulation - wipes 360 hard drive

[Zeus]

Multiple forum boards are filled with gamers asking whether it is possible for a virus to be transmitted over the Live network. The supposed virus is said to wipe content off your hard drive if executed, in order to be 'safe' from it, the best defensive strategy is simply not to accept random friend requests.


While playing some Test Drive Unlimited today, a player in the server we were in warned us not to accept friend requests from 2 users he named (Will not post them unless it is confirmed) — for one of his real life friends accepted one of these users requests, and immediately afterwards his Xbox 360 shut down and completely wiped his harddrive. This rumor has also been around on many Xbox related forums, so this may not only be speculation. Some say users with the end tag of “_virus” carry this, but from the names heard, no “_virus” tag was mentioned. So be warned, DO NOT accept random friend requests for they may wipe your harddrive.

Dave Notti over at the Gamertagradio forums said this:

“In a voice message from an old xbox friend of mine, he describes the virus as “Able to remove friends off of your friends list, Delete items off of your Hard Drive and obtain confidential Xbox Live membership information”


News Source: <A href="http://torquedorks.com/2007/08/18/virus-wipes-harddrive-in-xbox-live-friend-request/" target="_blank">Torquedorks.com</a>

[Zak]

I call bullshit.
How is one supposed to pull this off? What is the benefit?
It simply a retarded chain message aimed to diss those two users. I'd bet on it.

[AceMilo]

It's simple, its not possible. In order for this to be true, you would need the ability to run unsigned code which is not possible on the 360. 100% pure bullshit.

[cyb3rcr0w]

Zag its no bullshit im afraid to say i had an update for forza2 yesterday,did the update and it wiped my game save aswell as dead rising save an my dead rising was full maxed out every thing unlocked.
well either way after the update it wiped some of my saves and im not the only one this has happened to of who iknow so some thing is defo going on

[nemesiszero]

i agree with these guys there no possible way to do this xbox live does not support any coding in messages.

[Evolution]

Why oh why do people make up this kind of ****?

It causes totally unneccesary panic.

[Zak]

Even if we pretent for a moment unsigned code was runable on the 360...
One would need to hack Xbox Live which nobody has done so far since its heavily encrypted.

[kickinass]

Zag its no bullshit im afraid to say i had an update for forza2 yesterday,did the update and it wiped my game save aswell as dead rising save an my dead rising was full maxed out every thing unlocked.
well either way after the update it wiped some of my saves and im not the only one this has happened to of who iknow so some thing is defo going on
That sounds more like a bug than a virus.

[p$p b0y]

That sounds more like a bug than a virus.

agreed, you have more chance of microsoft going bankrupt than a virus getting onto live

[Jarua]

I can't believe Maxconsole posted this. It's the sort of thing you'd hear in EB or GAME. (Along with the guy who says he has the top secret details of the Playstation 4.)

[CZroe]

"When executed" indicates that you do not download and execute it, not that you do not accept random friend requests. And I highly doubt the friend requests would be random: It would likely spread itself through an already existing friends list.

The simple fact is, if this were true, it would mean that the real news is "OMG! XBOX 360 homebrew through XBL exploit! Proof of concept virus IN THE WILD!" Because it's not, it's clearly started and spread by those unaware that XBOX 360 homebrew is not yet possible (without extreme measures) and therefore it is spread by people who have no business reporting it as a virus because they don't know enough to identify one. Proven FALSE.

If there is any similar thing happening, it is a glitch or a security measure and not a virus. Also, deleted saves DO NOT equal "wiped hard drives." Microsoft outright said that they would disallow the use of some previously-working copied saves and I'd be willing to bet that the ones that disappeared were copied from an Action Replay, Internet site, or other XBOX 360.

[grapeape]

gotta love the "i have a friend who has a friend who's cousin was messaged by J_neutron07 and recieved a virus....:rolleyes: Didnt this very same rumor (or very similar) get spread around back when Halo (the first one) was released?

[Kenban]

I am not going to say its impossible because I suspect if there is a mistake in the code that it might be possible. But it would be VERY hard to pull off.

The way xbox live is setup though it should spread like wildfire if it was real. Its kinda like the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. If it is sent to your friends list then its sent to theirs and very quickly it should be hitting most of the people online. If this was a real virus then there should be pages of reports.

The _virus tag makes no sense as well. All the live data is stored on Microsoft's servers you can't just change your live screen name. To be able to suddenly be running under a new name the virus would have to create a new account on live.

[mystic54]

This was a topic over at the Neowin forums a week ago and it was quickly disproved there because XBL can't run unsigned code yet.

[Murc]

yup, 100% BS

[Sinar]

Hmm perhaps if the 360 ran windows 95-onwards

[SteveNZ]

Special kinda stupid. Nice one MC.

[Xenogears V]

Another hard hit for Microsoft.

[CZroe]

gotta love the "i have a friend who has a friend who's cousin was messaged by J_neutron07 and recieved a virus....:rolleyes: Didnt this very same rumor (or very similar) get spread around back when Halo (the first one) was released?

The first Halo was a launch title in 2001 and it existed before XBOX Live went public. As such, it had no XBOX LIVE support AT ALL. The only way to play online was to set up a virtual LAN using certain software and hope that real-world internet latencies were tolerable for a game designed to run on a LAN only.

[grapeape]

The first Halo was a launch title in 2001 and it existed before XBOX Live went public. As such, it had no XBOX LIVE support AT ALL. The only way to play online was to set up a virtual LAN using certain software and hope that real-world internet latencies were tolerable for a game designed to run on a LAN only.

Eh nevermind, found the reference...it was a virus that someone had packaged with a hacked version of xbconnect, it was a pc virus but got people worked up that it could cross over to the xbox.

[krollie]

I got a friend request from someone whom I had never played online with last week. I have sent messages to them three times asking who it is, with no reply. The request is still pending. Sounds a bit weird to read this today!!
:confused:

[MaTiAz]

Another hard hit for Microsoft.
You actually believe this 100% bullshit? Oh my gosh, if you're serious then you're seriously retarded.

[Vesica]

You actually believe this 100% bullshit? Oh my gosh, if you're serious then you're seriously retarded.

He just copy/paste everything he reads (and writes) here into an English to Italian translator, so I don't think he actually know what he's replying to most of the time :rolleyes:

[p$p b0y]

You actually believe this 100% bullshit? Oh my gosh, if you're serious then you're seriously retarded.

hes a sony fan fag.. just ignore him

[jetmanchandi]

no its true cos it happened to someone on my friends list and warned me not to accept an invite from "j_newton", so it must be true.

[o 345 o]

LOL
:p:p:p:p:p:p:p
LOL
:p:p:p:p:p:p:p

Bullshit;)

[joe90]

Another hard hit for Microsoft.

How can i ignore your posts? is there some setting somewhere?

back on topic.. complete BS, so bug caused a game save or 3 to be wiped, some one who has no idea what a computer virus is compared to a bug started shouting VIRUS.. and thus it spread..

Its just a bug ffs in some random circumstance

[Arakon]

maxconsole is slowly turning into a page that fuels noob idiocy and causes them to spam other forums with insanely stupid questions.

[grapeape]

no its true cos it happened to someone on my friends list and warned me not to accept an invite from "j_newton", so it must be true.

my friends sister has a boyfriend whos friends cousin had a virus sent to him through his 360 that caused his HDTV to explode and killed him....I got warned about it so it must be true....:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

[chelsKi_BLUE_8]

As many people have said this is BS, simple as. This kind of scare mongering is ridiculous.

"maxconsole is slowly turning into a page that fuels noob idiocy and causes them to spam other forums with insanely stupid questions." If ever a truer sentence :cool:

[grapeape]

As many people have said this is BS, simple as. This kind of scare mongering is ridiculous.

"maxconsole is slowly turning into a page that fuels noob idiocy and causes them to spam other forums with insanely stupid questions." If ever a truer sentence :cool:

To be fair this rumor didn't start here...there just happened to be someone gullible enough to repeat it here...and evidently enough gullible enough to believe it. It just goes to show how easy it is to start a rumor and how many people are gullible enough to just pass on the info as gospel without taking any time actually research the issue to see if its true. It happens on the PC every damn day unfortunately. I would bet if one person posted a rumor in the right forums that there is an infected Mii walking around on Nintendo's network that has Wii-aids and will overwrite your firmware bricking your Wii, it would take less than a day for it to spread like wildfire true or not.

BTW for the gullible that is not true there is no Wii-Aids I made it up as an example so don't panic :D Incidentally did you know gullible isn't in the dictionary?

[Sinar]

BTW for the gullible that is not true there is no Wii-Aids I made it up as an example so don't panic :D Incidentally did you know gullible isn't in the dictionary?
Hmmm he has wii-aids, don't connect to him guys you'll get it too. :eek:

[Jinx13378]

...maybe...maybe Live has reached a state of self-awareness?

With every single member, it feeds...it breathes...it gains knowledge...it's...watching you.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/SHODAN_hires.jpg

L-l-look at you, hacker. A p-p-pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you r-run through my corridors-s. H-h-how can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?


I've recently started to re-play both System Shock 1 and 2, heh.

[snipersnake]

really, MC needs to INVESTIGATE the 'news' before pasting it here. Rumors are only needed when the message board is pathetic, to hype it up. Unless its true, I dont think MC needs to mind the rumors. it really give a bad impression towards the site.

[The_Eggman_1972]

my friends sister has a boyfriend whos friends cousin had a virus sent to him through his 360 that caused his HDTV to explode and killed him....I got warned about it so it must be true....:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
You sending flowers ? you must be in bits m8 :eek::rolleyes:..Yeah this story is absoloute bullshit if unasigned code could be run im sure they would do something else with it.Thus far the Hypervisor on the 360 has been virtually unhackable and with dashupdates required to play the latest titles i belive this will always be the case.

[jerzmob]

It's simple, its not possible. In order for this to be true, you would need the ability to run unsigned code which is not possible on the 360. 100% pure bullshit.

yes b/c you know EVERYTHING about what 360 is capable of inside and out:rolleyes:

have you ever heard of the "elite.":p With technology advancing, whether it'd bring good things and bad, anything is possible. i wouldn't be surprise if team m33 "jump in" and show M$ a piece of their mind. If these hackers can bring good things to the table they can also do the contrary if they feel like it.

...maybe...maybe Live has reached a state of self-awareness?

With every single member, it feeds...it breathes...it gains knowledge...it's...watching you.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/SHODAN_hires.jpg

L-l-look at you, hacker. A p-p-pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you r-run through my corridors-s. H-h-how can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?


I've recently started to re-play both System Shock 1 and 2, heh.

you're gay

[MaTiAz]

you're gay
So are you.

Oh BTW, seems like you don't have a single clue about the amount of security in the 360. With these levels it simply isn't possible.