Suspect Arrested in New Hacking Attack on Sony

Posted on Aug 29, 2012

goblinbox (queen of ad hoc bento) (CC BY 2.0)

U.S. authorities have arrested 20-year-old Raynaldo Rivera of Tempe, Ariz., an alleged member of the hacking group LulzSec, on suspicion of hacking computer systems belonging to Sony Pictures Europe. If convicted, he could face 15 years in prison.

The indictment says Rivera and others stole information from the company’s computers in May and June of 2011, and then posted proprietary information on the LulzSec website and announced the intrusion via Twitter.

Authorities are still stumped over who hacked Sony’s PlayStation network in April, however, an attack that may have leaked credit card details of millions of users. Shortly after the incident, the company suggested the group Anonymous might be involved.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

The Guardian:

Following the Sony Pictures Europe breach, LulzSec published the names, birth dates, addresses, emails, phone numbers and passwords of thousands of people who had entered contests promoted by Sony, and publicly boasted of its exploits.

“From a single injection we accessed EVERYTHING,” the hackers said in a statement at the time. “Why do you put such faith in a company that allows itself to become open to these simple attacks?”

Authorities have said the Sony breach ultimately cost the company more than $600,000 (£378,000).

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