A 20 year-old prankster has admitted to wiping Apple devices owned by journalist Mat Honan and has been implicated along with his team RealTeamHype in the hijacking of Xbox accounts belonging to senior Microsoft staff.
The US man, also fingered as a possible perptrator behind denial of service attacks on two security news sites, was identified as Ryan Stevenson by security reporter Brian Krebs.
Microsoft confirmed to The Verge the accounts were compromised by attackers who had gathered its "security proof" data from third party websites.
These proofs included second factor and account recovery phone numbers, email addresses and date of birth information which were used to prove identity and gain access to the Xbox accounts.
The statement to the Verge said:
"We are aware that a group of attackers are using several stringed social engineering techniques to compromise the accounts of a handful of high-profile Xbox LIVE accounts held by current and former Microsoft employees. We are actively working with law enforcement and other affected companies to disable this current method of attack and prevent its further use. Security is of critical importance to us and we are working every day to bring new forms of protection to our members."
Krebs recieved information identifying Stevenson as the hacker, including the 20 year-old's 'doxed' information in which his home phone number was listed.
Stevenson admitted hacking Honan's account during a phone call with Krebs but did not comment when asked if he setup the DDOS attacks,.
He also did not comment when asked if he was responsible for placing a bogus emergency call to police who subsequently raided Krebs' house which occurred close to the time of the DDoS attack.
Krebs also recieved Stevenson's RealTeamHype's YouTube account, since closed, which contained videos demonstrating the Microsoft Xbox accounts being hijacked.
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