Juvenile Hacker to Pay $5,000 for Crippling Sony’s Gaming Website

A Latrobe-based (Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, US) computer hacker crippled Sony Entertainment Corporation's worldwide video gaming website. He is ordered to serve for 12 months on probation, do community service for 250 hours, and compensate the company $5,000.

John Driscoll, Judge Westmoreland Count, delivered the sentencing order to the hacker on April 28, 2010.

The teenager faced four counts in total. For legal reasons, his name could not be disclosed. The court found this juvenile guilty of using computer for illegal, criminal motives, computer encroaching and distribution of virus which resulted in the crash down of Sony's gaming website during November 16-26, 2008.

It was found that in routine life, the kid was a normal person and a good student who participated in co-curricular and other school activities. However, the entire case revolves around the fact that this teen was obsessed to win.

According to the investigators, the teen boy hacked the PlayStation website of Sony in vengeance as he had been kicked off the website for cheating while playing SOCOM US Navy Seals, a war game.

The juvenile made use of hacker tools and equipments to communicate with a botnet. These were instructed to block three games, causing the PlayStation website to stop working and go offline.

Sony asked for $33,200 as fine. However, the judge said that this restitution amount would be too much for the teen.

The Judge in his order wrote that like severe cyber attacks against national cyber security, this offence resulted in a major alarm within the FBI and Sony Corp. It would be expected from sociopathic or anti-social people to execute a computer crime of such a severe nature, but the teen appeared to have admitted personal liability. He agreed that for the crime he had committed, he must be held accountable, as reported by pittsburghlive.com on April 29, 2010.

Finally, the US Federal authorities have tracked and accused other juveniles also besides this hacker from the Westmoreland County. A Massachusetts based 17 year old hacker, known for causing problems in online gaming families, in November 2008 admitted that he was responsible for a multitude computer offences that included the infringement of numerous corporate computer systems.

» SPAMfighter News - 5/10/2010