3 PSN Arrests
posted Saturday Jun 11, 2011 by Scott Ertz
This has been a big week for Sony - first they presented incredibly well at E3 2011 and now arrests have been made in the PSN hacking and outage case. The Spanish National Police announced on Friday that they had detailed 3 individuals in charge of hacking into the Sony network as well as several international business and government systems.
The individuals were identified as leadership of Anonymous, a group we have spoken of in the past in relation to this story, the group has repeatedly denied official involvement in the attack. It has always been assumed, however, that members of the group, acting alone, were probably behind it. These arrests either confirm the assumptions or are based solely on the assumptions.
For details on the attack and who else has been a victim, hit the break.
The one attacker whose information has been made public, a 31-year-old Spaniard, has a lot against him. He was in possession of a server which has been linked to the attack on the PSN. That's not the end of it for this computer, though. It is also linked to,
Coordinated attacks against two Spanish banks, BBVA and Bankia; the Italian energy company Enel; and government sites in Algeria, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Libya, Iran, Spain and New Zealand.
At the very least, the computer is not going to get away with any of this. The men, however, were all released pending formal charges. The charge? Forming an illegal association to attack public and corporate Web sites. That carries with it a hefty 3 years in jail.
The jail time seems insignificant, especially when you consider that Sony estimates an overall cost of $175 million based solely on this breach. That does not factor in costs associated with Lulz Security's attack on Sony Pictures, which was most likely inspired by the attack on the PSN and any future upgrades due to the breach. As far as punishments go, a cumulative 9 years in prison for an attack costing $175 million certainly seems lax.
What do you think? Is the possible punishment adequate or do you think it should be increased or decreased? Let us know in the comments.
