Sony Hints at Anonymous' Involvement in Security Breaches

In a letter to Congress, Sony claims that Anonymous' distributed denial-of-service attacks against its systems served as cover for more serious intrusions that resulted in massive data breaches. In addition, it claims that a file bearing the group's signature was found on one of its compromised servers.

"Sony has been the victim of a very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyber attack," the chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment America's board, Mr. Kazuo Hirai, wrote in the letter to the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce.

He went on to suggest that the intrusions occurred while the company's staff was dealing with the DDoS attacks launched by Anonymous.

The DDoS campaign orchestrated by the notorious group of hacktivists was directed at the PlayStation Network (PSN) and in retaliation to Sony launching legal actions against PS3 hackers, and George "geohot" Hotz in particular.

The attacks were canceled after a couple of days, with the group announcing that it doesn't intend to harm customers and promising to find another method to humiliate the company.

In addition to these attacks providing cover for the hacker or hackers who penetrated Sony's defenses and stole the personal and financial information of tens of millions of consumers, a text file found on a compromised Sony Online Entertainment was called "Anonymous" and had "We are Legion" written inside.

That line is part of Anonymous' slogan: "We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us."

Anonymous denied any involvement in the PSN breach in a previous press release, but messages from an associated Facebook account suggested otherwise. Of course, the simple presence of the file doesn't confirm the group's involvement, but it is possible that one or more Anonymous members acted on their own.