Sony mulls price on head of PSN hackers

Sony might offer a cash reward to whoever could turn in those who hacked into the PlayStation Network. A slip from sources said Sony was actively discussing the prospect of a bounty and, if it went ahead, would team with regional police to coordinate the payout. The electronics giant hadn't settled on a reward as a course of action and would need top-level approval from Sony headquarters to go ahead, AllThingsD said.

The company may not have have far to search. Insiders from the hacking scene claimed that the culprit or culprits were rogue members of Anonymous who decided to go deep into PSN itself where most Anonymous hackers balked at the idea. The group's ideological basis and sense of community might make it difficult to encourage betrayals, however.

A bounty would reflect Sony's embarrassment at the attacks, which exposed much of the non-financial information of 77 million PSN users worldwide and 24 million Sony Online Entertainment gamers. In learning the extent of the attack, Sony mentioned that only the credit card data was completely encrypted while the personal information was locked mostly a cryptographical hash on passwords.

Sony has since denied claims that it knowingly allowed lax security such as outdated Apache web servers and no firewalls. In a statement, Sony said its servers had been "patched and updated recently" and had a firewall in place.

By Electronista Staff

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