A couple in Ocean Beach, CA., noticed that their five year old son, Kristoffer Von Hassel, was logging into the Xbox Live account belonging to his father - and like anyone given the proverbial 'keys to the candy shop' he began to play some games that were off limits.

The vulnerability Kristoffer exposed was a flaw in the account login password; he found that by repeatedly tapping the space button, it would allow you to login without actually knowing a valid password for the account. Nice and secure that was.....

According to 10News, Kristoffers' father, who works in computer security, was one proud papa. His first reaction? "How awesome is that!" Davies said. “Just being 5 years old and being able to find a vulnerability and latch onto that. I thought that was pretty cool.”

It's not the first time Kristoffer has flashed his tech skills.

“He’s figured out vulnerabilities 3 or 4 times,” said Davies.



Microsoft publicly acknowledged the boy: The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) is pleased to recognize the security researchers who have helped make Microsoft online services safer by finding and reporting security vulnerabilities. Each name listed represents an individual or company who has privately disclosed one or more security vulnerabilities in our online services and worked with us to remediate the issue.

In a statement, Microsoft said, "We're always listening to our customers and thank them for bringing issues to our attention. We take security seriously at Xbox and fixed the issue as soon as we learned about it."

Microsoft will also be reward Kristoffer with four games, $50 and a year's subscription to Xbox Live from Microsoft.