News
Did Hackers Use Amazon's Cloud Service To Attack PlayStation Network?
Bloomberg News is reporting this morning that the hackers who attacked Sony's PlayStation Network -- which was down for almost a month -- used Amazon's cloud service to stage their attacks.
The reporters who wrote the Bloomberg report cite an anonymous source "with knowledge of the matter" for the information. An Amazon spokesperson contacted by Bloomberg to confirm or deny the information declined to comment.
According to the source, the hackers used Amazon's Elastic Computer Cloud (EC2) to stage the attacks, but did "not hack into Amazon" -- meaning that they paid to rent the cloud service. (EC2's servers can be rented by the hour.)
The account, set up under a "bogus name," has since been disabled.
The Bloomberg article does not say whether or not the EC2 service was just one (or the only) of the staging areas used in the attack.
Sony has also not issued a statement about the report. Its PlayStation network, brought down last month, just came back up this past weekend.
About the Author
Becky Nagel is the vice president of Web & Digital Strategy for 1105's Converge360 Group, where she oversees the front-end Web team and deals with all aspects of digital projects at the company, including launching and running the group's popular virtual summit and Coffee talk series . She an experienced tech journalist (20 years), and before her current position, was the editorial director of the group's sites. A few years ago she gave a talk at a leading technical publishers conference about how changes in Web browser technology would impact online advertising for publishers. Follow her on twitter @beckynagel.