Reports are circulating that Microsoft’s Xbox Live gaming platform has been the target of a mass fraud campaign – but the problem is thought to be a phishing scam rather than an infrastructure flaw.

The Sun newspaper is reporting that people in 35 countries around the world have been targeted so far in the campaign, which sees users tricked into giving out their personal details to a third party and then finding their bank accounts up to £200 lighter. The criminals sometimes operate by befriending victims through the social networking aspect of the community so that they garner enough personal information to then take over the account, gaining access to credit and debit card information through the user’s private profile in the process.

With the money taken in small increments, it is thought to have taken longer than usual to detect the fraud.

While the discovery brings Sony’s PlayStation Network breach sharply back into focus, the two are very different and separate incidents. The Sony incident earlier this year, which saw its online gaming community grind to a halt for three weeks, resulted in hundreds of thousands of user details leaked after cyber criminals found loopholes in the technical architecture of the platform. This time, users themselves have been responsible for giving out their details in what is known as a phishing scam.

Reports suggest that Microsoft is refunding any user that can prove they did not give their passwords out to a third party and the company says it is investigating the situation.