Microsoft deleted a hacked user's 25-year-old Xbox account, along with his OneDrive baby photos (Updated)

Wait, some folks are blaming the victim? If someone duplicated my car key somehow to an older Chevy; stole it…and the response from the Police should be to blame me rather than recovery efforts? Seems fairly morally bankrupt.

He had a password and no MFA. It is far more likely he reused that password on other sites, which ended up on a breached collection, which was then used to easily gain access of the account. And we blame the victim? Could he have had MFA? Yes. Did he? No. But certainly he deserved it? Lord have mercy on us.

No, the corp that can and does have the ability to fix the issue, should resolve the issue. Instead, in typical Ms fashion, they don’t. You cannot hate this company enough.

 
Microsoft confirmed he was the account owner and that he had been hacked, then responded by permanently deleting everything. That is not account recovery. It is helping the attacker finish the job.

The cloud is convenient, but it is not a backup when it is the only place your files exist.
 
Update (July 16): Microsoft has restored Joshua Khane's 25-year-old account, returning access to his Xbox library, OneDrive files, and irreplaceable family photos after initially describing the closure as permanent. Khane welcomed the recovery but questioned why it took widespread attention and community pressure to reverse a decision support had presented as final.

The episode is over but it depicts an uncomfortable reality of digital ownership: access to years of purchases and personal memories can hinge on a single company account.

 
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