As PlayStation Network tries to get back online, Sony points to Anonymous
The company has written a letter to Congress saying the data theft came as it was defending itself against cyber-attacks
Investigators found a file implicating the “hacktivist” group Anonymous in the security breach that led to the theft of the personal details of more than 100 million online gamers, electronics company Sony has told the US Congress.
In a letter to Congress, Sony said the data theft came at the same time it was defending itself against a cyber-attack from members of Anonymous.
Forensic experts found a file on one of the hacked systems, titled Anonymous, which contained a phrase – “We are legion” – that is sometimes used by the hackers’ collective, said Sony chairman Kazuo Hirai in the letter to members of the House of Representatives.
“What is becoming more and more evident is that Sony has been the victim of a very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyber-attack designed to steal personal and credit card information for illegal purposes,” he told the House commerce committee, who have launched an inquiry into the matter.
Hirai, chairman of the board of directors of Sony Computer Entertainment America, said Anonymous began denial-of-service attacks, which take servers down by overwhelming them with internet traffic, after the company took action against a hacker in a federal court in San Francisco.