It’s 
not uncommon for kids to break things. It is, however, pretty special when what they break is the security of a hi-tech video game console.
Kristoffer Von Hassel from San Diego’s Ocean Beach neighborhood is the wunderkind who discovered a security loophole on the Xbox One.
The 
New Year is off to a lousy start for some of the gaming industry’s largest digital distribution sites.
Valve’s Steam, EA’s Origin, and Blizzard’s Battle.net were the target of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks Thursday night, which overloaded servers and took the sites offline. All three have adjusted their firewalls and are back online at this point.
Politicians 
may occasionally get away with cheating in one form or fashion, but they’d better not try it at the California State University San Marcos. It just might earn them jail time.
Matt Weaver, a junior at the school, ran for president last year. And to ensure his victory, he rigged the campus election by stealing passwords from roughly 750 students to cast votes for himself. Earlier this week, that stunt earned him a year in prison.
Malicious 
tomfoolery is afoot in Azeroth.
Blizzard Entertainment has issued a warning to World of Warcraft players, noting that the number of unauthorized logins has been on the rise recently, a sign that hackers are targeting player accounts and stealing their in-game gold.
New 
Mexico residents might want to grab their shovels.
Those long buried copies of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, the infamous Atari 2600 game that many believe contributed to the great North American video game industry crash of 1983, might be worth digging up thanks to a hacker who has seemingly fixed its biggest bugs.
As 
foreign hackers probe the U.S. infrastructure grid in an effort to infiltrate and undermine the government, the Department of Homeland Security is looking for a few good gamers.
Well, technically, it’s looking for a few good hackers of its own — but it’s using games to find them.
For 
years, hackers didn’t pay much attention to the websites and databases of entertainment companies, but since the intrusion into Sony’s PlayStation Network last May, it has been open season. Cyber criminals have targeted Sony Pictures, “World of Warcraft” publisher Blizzard Software and several other entertainment companies.
The stolen data is worth cash. How much depends on what thieves are able to compile.
Add 
PlaySpan to the ever-growing list of video game companies that have been targeted by hackers.
Online thieves and mischief-makers have reportedly released details for two million accounts online, with players of World of Tanks seemingly most at risk.
Add 
Blizzard Entertainment to the long list of video game companies that have been hacked in the past 18 months.
Mike Morhaime, president of the company behind titles such as World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, and Diablo III, announced the breach of the company’s Battle.net servers in a note to users late Thursday afternoon, urging them to change their passwords.
The 
war on terror has taken an odd — and kind of fun — turn.
The U.S. government has hired a white hat hacker collective to dig through used video game systems in an effort to track down bad guys.
Chris Morris: Journalist 