A five-year-old boy who discovered a security vulnerability on Xbox Live has been thanked by Microsoft.

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In an interview with San Diego's KGTV station , Kristoffer Von Hassel explained how he discovered a way to log into his father's account and make purchases without knowing the correct password.He discovered that entering the wrong password at the log-in stage would cause a second verification screen to pop up. Filling this by pressing the space bar rather than entering any letters or numbers allowed him to get access to the account.His father, Robert, passed details of the incident onto Microsoft. Upon receiving the report, the company fixed the flaw and also added Kristoffer's name to a list of security researchers thanked for their contribution to keeping Microsoft secure.He also received four free games, $50 and a year-long Xbox Live Gold Membership.

Luke Karmali is IGN's UK News Editor. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on Twitter