Spanish Authorities Arrest Alleged Hackers Linked To PlayStation Breach

Spanish police authorities have arrested three computer hackers who allegedly breached the Sony Corp. networks affiliated with the PlayStation 3 video-game console and the company’s streaming music and video service.

Spain’s national police announced in a June 10 press release the suspected hackers belong to the infamous international group of hackers named Anonymous, which claimed responsibility for attacking the websites for Visa Inc., MasterCard Worldwide and PayPal Inc. last year (see story).

Police arrested three individuals between the ages of 30 and 32. Authorities found a computer server in one suspect’s home that allegedly was used to hack the PlayStation Network, two Spanish banks, an Italian energy company, and government websites for Algeria, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Iran, Libya and New Zealand.

The New York Times reported Spanish authorities launched an investigation in October after hackers flooded the country’s Ministry of Culture’s website to protest laws against illegal music and movie downloads.

Spanish authorities did not reveal what they found on the servers.

Sony said that between April 17 and April 19 an authorized third party accessed the PlayStation Network, which enables some 77 million users to play video games together and download music and movies. The breach also affected Qriocity, Sony’s streaming music and video service.

Sony in May reported that 12,700 credit and debit card numbers and expiration dates were exposed in a separate database from that affected by the massive PlayStation breach (see story).  Sony has not said if a single person or group attacked multiple servers.

Spanish authorities also are unsure if the particular group from Anonymous they arrested performed multiple Sony breaches.

The cards in the separate database were in an “outdated database from 2007” and belonged to non-U.S. customers of Sony’s online personal-computer games, Sony announced. In addition, 10,700 direct-debit records for customers in some countries also were exposed. Overall, 24.6 million PC gaming accounts were affected, exposing names, addresses, birth dates, hashed passwords and other details.

Sony maintained it did not believe that fraud was committed with credit card information stolen during the breach, but the company has asked its customers to remain diligent and to monitor their accounts for unauthorized transactions. It even considered reimbursing financial institutions for any costs associated with reissuing credit cards that might have been compromised (see story).

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