A 23-year old man was arrested on Thursday in Arizona on suspicion of his involvement in the Sony Pictures Entertainment breach this past May. The man, Cody Andrew Kretsinger, is thought to be a member of hacking collective LulzSec.
According to the indictment against Kretsinger, the man registered a virtual private server at hidemyass.com using an online handle, "recursion," on May 23 in Tempe, Arizona. This masking server was then used to perform SQL injection attacks on Sony's servers and steal personal data. After this was done the attack was announced on the LulzSec twitter account. The document also alleges that Kretsinger erased his hard drive following the attack in an effort to cover his tracks.
The specific charges against Kretsinger are one count of conspiracy and one count of fraud.
Also on Thursday, a yet to be identified man was arrested in San Francisco. That arrest was made in connection to the Anonymous attacks on sites belonging to Santa Cruz County government offices. Fox News is reporting that FBI officials are also executing search warrants on other suspected members of Anonymous in New Jersey, Minnesota, and Montana.
It seems that the U.S. isn't the only country hunting down suspected members of these hacking groups. Five additional suspects have been arrested overseas. Those suspects consist of one in the United Kingdom, identified by police as "Tflow" a past member of LulzSec. The four additional arrests were made in the Netherlands.
It's clear that law enforcement agencies are serious about tracking down hackers responsible for a variety of cyber attacks over the past year. It will be interesting to track the cases against these alleged members and see exactly how things play out in terms of verdict and sentencing. This does all make me wonder if Anonymous will actually go through with their September 24th, "Day of Vengeance" or if they will change their plan in an effort to not draw further attention to their members.
