Hackers Steal Millions of Minecraft Passwords

Minecraft Passwords Stolen by Hackers

Login data of more than seven million members of the Minecraft site Lifeboat has been stolen by hackers. Lifeboat is a service for determined servers and customized multiplayer games for Minecraft Pocket Edition and this data breach tends to affect customers who seem to use the service. If one has used Minecraft Pocket Edition without signing up for Lifeboat, it is ok but if one used Lifeboat, they would possibly get a message compelling them to change the password for the site in early 2015 which was because the company was aware about the hack, though it had not made the information public till recently. Lifeboat permits members to run servers for customised, multiplayer maps for smartphone edition of Minecraft.

There is confirmation that the information that is stolen comprising of email addresses and passwords is provided on site that trade in hacked data. Investigation recommends that passwords were weakly protected and hence attackers could work them out with ease. Evidence regarding the breach had been passed to Tony Hunt, independent security expert, who stated that he had received the list from someone who tends to trade in stolen identifications. Most of the people had informed him that the data had been circulating on dark net sites.

Passwords for Lifeboat Hashed – Little Security

Mr Hunt had mentioned that the data had been stolen in early 2016 though the breach had only been known, now. He said that passwords for Lifeboat accounts were hashed though the procedure utilised provided little security. Hashing is said to be a technique utilised to scramble passwords in order that they are not easily read if the data tends to get stolen or lost. According to Mr Hunt, usually a Google search for hashed password would practically provide it in an accurate plain text and people familiar in cracking tools could possibly computerize and accelerate this procedure.

He further stated that a Google search for a hashed password could quickly return the correct plain text value and well known cracking tools could automate as well as speed up this procedure. He had mentioned in a blogpost regarding the breach that a large percentage of those passwords would be reverted to plain text in a short time. He also informed that this often tends to lead to other security problems since several people re-use passwords and find out one which could lead attackers to compromise accounts on other sites. Lifeboat, in a statement provided to Motherboard, had stated that it had taken action in limiting the damage.

How to Minimise Damage to Users

It informed the news site that when this occurred in early January, they figured the best thing for their players was to quietly force password resets without letting the hackers know they had limited time to act, adding that it now used stronger hashing procedures. It also mentioned that they had not received any reports of anyone being damaged by this. Mr Hunthad been critical of the company for `quietly’ compelling the password re-set stating this policy had left him speechless.

As an alternative, he said that Lifeboat should have done more in alerting users so that they could change passwords rapidly if they used the same one on other sites. He said that the first thing which should be a priority with any company after an incident like this is `How to minimise the damage to the users’.

First Look at Virtual Reality Minecraft at Xbox Showcase

Minecraft – Loved by Millions Game Lovers Worldwide

Minecraft is much loved by millions game lovers across the world and now Microsoft has revealed what the immersive world tend to look like in virtual reality. Microsoft purchased the block building phenomenon in 2014 for $2.5bn which is a massive deal that has made the fans apprehensive about its future.

The US firm has assured not to ruin its widespread formula and has instead stated that it would invest in bringing Minecraft to the next level. At the event in trendy Mission District in San Francisco, the Xbox division showed for the first time, the virtual reality version of Minecraft. Palmer Luckey, creator of the Oculus Rift VR headset commented that it makes one feel like they are in the world of Minecraft.

Similar to several VR experiences, it seems to be completely absorbing and for those passionate with addictive building process of Minecraft, it seems to be a big leap from watching it on a normal screen. As for a game focused mainly for children, there is one figure which could bother the parents which is $1,500. It is the recommend price which needs to be spent if intending to purchase an Oculus Rift headset and a PC adequate enough to power it.

PC Gaming – Fastest Growing Segment of Gaming

Minecraft on Oculus seems to be one of the many games on display at the Spring Showcase of Xbox an opportunity for journalists together with a few influential YouTube gamers to get their hands on with the forthcoming blockbusters. Several of the titles on show had been pushed as great to play on PC through Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system.

Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer had commented that if one tends to look at the numbers, PC gaming seems to be the fastest growing segment of gaming and it is natural that one focus on gaming on Windows. Microsoft had chosen not to make its own headset with regard to virtual reality; though it is developing the augmented reality focused Hololens and is rather working in making it compatible with the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

With regards to price debate, Mr Spencer stated that he was of the belief that virtual reality would follow the path of high definition TVs, which is a luxury product to begin with though hard to resist once experienced.

Company Not a Victim of Hack

He added that the early adopter will be there to help spur the VR industry. New games seem to mean nothing unless gamers tend to get online to play them and recently it has been more of a challenge. The service Xbox gamers would play against each other over the internet which has stressed out thousands.

Displeased fans comprise of rapper Snoop Dogg had requested Bill Gates to fix the issue or he’d blemish to PlayStation and Mr Spencer had apologised for the issues. He stated that it’s obviously always regretful and the last outage was a concern and they learned from it.

They understood precisely what the issue was and it took a little more time that they would have liked.He disagreed that the company had been the victim of a hack stating that when its network was under continuous attack it was not as it was claimed, demolished by coordinated attempt to cut the gamers off. Besides this on the risk of losing Snoop Dogg, he commented that Snoop had been a long time gamer and long-time supporter of Xbox.

Super Mario Bros.: The first level contained in Minecraft

Two players Minecraft have made up his mind to recreate the first level of the Game Boy version of Super Mario Bros. in Stop Motion, and it simply with blocks and objects "crafted."

18 million units and 500 hours later, these artists have players completed a video of 2 minutes and 22 seconds. For this achievement, they reproduced a Boy Giant 1:1 scale in the construction mode of Minecraft. The screen of the copy contains 160 blocks of 144 blocks, or the exact definition of the console original. Like the Game Boy, so there are 23,040 pixels, or blocks in the case of Minecraft.

Minecraft exclusively on the Xperia Play

Mojang Studios has announced that the Android version of Minecraft be initially available exclusively on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. Best known as the PlayStation Phone, the Xperia seems most appropriate for the game wandering through the physical controller is integrated.