
LulzSec’s Raynaldo Rivera has confessed to hacking Sony Pictures via SQL Injection in 2011. The hacker formerly known as “neuron,” “royal” and “wildicv” will have to pay restitution and could face up to five years in prison.
With his plea, Mr. Rivera admitted to filching and publishing user info from Sony Pictures’ website, collecting data such as names, birth dates, email addresses and passwords.
Mr. Rivera now knows what some still hacking in the wild may not–services that offer to hide your IP address are not foolproof.
Hackers know they have to cover their tracks. Mr. Rivera tried, but he discovered something unfortunate, which is that some proxy services will cooperate when confronted with legal action:
However, Rivera had not been careful enough in disguising his tracks – and HideMyAss co-operated with the authorities when a court order was received by the anonymising proxy service.
Sony says it incurred a $605,000 loss from the hack. Combined with fines, that means Mr. Rivera will ultimately owe Sony and the users whose information he hacked nearly a million dollars.