Hacker Pleads Guilty To Sony Pictures Breach

Back in June, a massive hack was conducted on the Sony Pictures Website. The attack led to the theft of details on over 1 million accounts and was linked to the hacker group Lulzsec. At the time, the hacker group claimed to have used a "very simple SQL injection" attack. Samples of the compromised data were later posted online.

Out of the details stolen 39,000 e-mail address and password combinations were posted. The hackers also posted e-mail, password, home addresses, and dates of birth on 12,500 different users. Sony Pictures and the authorities began an investigation into the hack, and eventually an Arizona man was arrested and charged with the crime.

The arrested hacker was 20-year-old Raynaldo Rivera. Rivera was taken into custody in August and made a plea agreement with authorities where he admitted to hacking the Sony Pictures website and stealing personal information of thousands of individuals. The Hacker says that in May of 2011, use a third-party service to mask his IP address and then hit the Sony Pictures website with commands to exploit security vulnerabilities in the website servers.

The information that the hacker stole resulted in over $605,000 in financial losses. Part of the plea agreement will see Riviera paying restitution to the victims of the crime and facing prison time. The hacker is facing a maximum of five years in prison, and the fine will be at least $250,000.

[via ArsTechnica]