Sony Hacked Again; Claims Come From Same Group Taking Credit for Tupac Alive Hoax on PBS

Hackers are claiming that they’ve created a sequel of sorts to the attack that forced the shutdown of Sony Online Entertainment in April.

A group calling itself “Lulz Security” said Thursday that it had broken into Sony’s website, accessing more than 1 million users’ accounts.

“We are looking into these claims,” said Jim Kennedy, executive vp global communications at Sony Pictures Entertainment.

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A statement on Lulz’s website claimed: “We recently broke into SonyPictures.com and compromised over 1,000,000 users’ personal information, including passwords, e-mail addresses, home addresses, dates of birth, and all Sony opt-in data associated with their accounts. Among other things, we also compromised all admin details of Sony Pictures (including passwords) along with 75,000 ‘music codes’ and 3.5 million ‘music coupons.'”

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It further said that due to limited financial resources, it had not fully copied all the information but had saved samples to its files as evidence of the break-in.

The group said it was not out “to come across as master hackers” but to expose “primitive and common vulnerabilities” on the Sony site.

The same group took credit for an attack on the PBS website over the weekend, posting a fake story on PBS.org, saying that the late rapper Tupac Shakur was still alive.

The new attack comes just as Sony announced that it “will fully restore all PlayStation Network services June 2, in the Americas, Europe/PAL territories and Asia, excluding Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea.”

PlayStation Network and Qriocity were shut down April 20, after an unauthorized person hacked into the accounts of an estimated 77 million users, gaining access to names, addresses, passwords and possibly credit card information.

Information from Sony Online Entertainment was also stolen, potentially affecting an additional 24.6 million users. Phased restoration of the services began May 14.

Tim Schaaff, president of Sony Network Entertainment International, testified Wednesday before the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade. The hearing was entitled “Sony and Epsilon: Lessons for Data Security Legislation.”