PlayStation hack linked to Amazon EC2
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.)
Amazon EC2 allows developers and companies to rent compute power which would otherwise require heavy investments in raising server farms, writes the International Business Times. Amazon EC2 is primarily used for testing purposes.
However, Amazon EC2 is just not a favourite of companies looking for cost savings but has recently become a cynosure to hackers and malicious code crackers.
While the scale of the Sony PlayStation attack was unprecedented, Amazon has been in spotlight since August 2010 when two security researches used EC2 infrastructure to produce a denial-of-service attack against a small enterprise at the DEF Con 2010, a software security conference held in Las Vegas.
Meanwhile, Sony has hit a few glitches as it pushes the reset button on its hacked gaming networks; apparently it's not easy to reset 102 million passwords, reports ComputerWorld.
After announcing the restart over the weekend, the company said on Monday its PlayStation Store is still not working, and some customers are having a hard time resetting their passwords.
The “very large number of requests has caused certain ISPs to slow the rate at which recipients get e-mails from us,” company spokesman Jeff Rubenstein wrote in a blog posting. “Please be patient as the systems work through the backlog.”
Without going into specifics, the company warned on its Web site that some PlayStation.com services “may be unavailable due to phased restoration of PlayStation Network.” Online gameplay and video playback are working, as are the networks' social services, such as chatting with friends, Rubenstein said.
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