Hackers claim rogue Anonymous faction behind PSN attack
updated 04:10 pm EDT, Fri May 6, 2011
Splinter from Anonymous said at fault for PSN hack
A pair of unnamed Anonymous members alleged on Friday that the PlayStation Network hack was the fault of a splinter group from their team. While the larger group has publicly denied involvement, the two told the FT that one or a small number of those backing OpSony, the campaign to punish Sony for limiting and suing over PS3 jailbreaks, decided to go further than everyone else. One of the two claimed to have seen details of an exploit posted shortly before the hack went through.
The other, nicknamed Kayla, reminded the publication that Anonymous wasn't always acting as one concerted group. The deliberate credit effectively made Anonymous involved despite most if not all others objecting to the break-in. One of the members warned it wouldn't be fair to blame the entire group for a rogue operation.
Insiders near Sony's investigation named Anonymous as a target, but they weren't willing to limit the search to just the one group. Publicly, it has admitted it didn't yet know who was involved. A few Anonymous members, possibly those responsible, have supposedly gone 'dark' to avoid being caught.
Regardless of intent, the Anonymous members sided with Sony in saying that no credit card info was exposed. Fears had surfaced that account access had also included payment information and that mass fraud or info trading could damage the 77 million PSN and Qriocity account holders, as well as 24 million SOE account holders. Only a few administrator-level accounts were downloaded off of the server, one hacker said.
The attack could be one of the most damaging ever conducted in retaliation for Sony's attempts to curb custom PS3 software, but not necessarily the largest. While so far one of the largest of any kind in online history, rumors have emerged of a follow-up attack this weekend, just as PSN is due to go back online.
TAGS :
sony, industry, security, gaming, gadgets, hacks, PSN, Qriocity, Anonymous, PlayStation Network, Sony Online Entertainment
