Three arrested for Sony PS3 HACK!!!!

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Spanish police have arrested three alleged members of online hacker collective Anonymous as part of a global police crackdown on the group claiming responsibility for computer attacks against a broad range of targets in recent months, from Sony Corp. and MasterCard Inc. to governments, including Spain's.

The Spanish national police identified the individuals as senior members within Anonymous in Spain. A computer server found in one of the homes was responsible for helping launch attacks against a number of government and corporate websites, according to the police. That included against websites of the Sony Playstation Store, two large Spanish banks, and Italian energy company Enel, as well as of the governments of Egypt, Libya, Iran and elsewhere, the police said.

With so-called denial of service attacks, Anonymous members create havoc by bombarding target websites with data with the aim of overwhelming and paralyzing servers. The three individuals were arrested on suspicion of causing economic damage, breaching privacy laws, among other things, and have been released from police custody.

Police said their investigation began in October following a complaint from the culture ministry, which had seen its website targeted by online attacks in retaliation for a law aimed at preventing the illegal download of copyright music or other content.

Separate attacks against the Central Electoral Board in May led to the arrest of an individual in Almeria, where police found the computer server. Further attacks against other targets, including the Catalan police, led to the two other arrests, in Barcelona and Alicante.

In one of the houses searched, police found software designed specifically to infect other people's computers, according to Spanish authorities. They also said they found evidence of sophisticated encryption and other techniques for hiding an individual's identity.

Anonymous entered the spotlight late last year with a number of cyber attacks on companies and individuals that they said tried to impede the work of document-sharing website WikiLeaks. That included MasterCard and Visa Inc., which had halted payments to WikiLeaks. They have moved on in recent months to attack Web sites linked to Middle Eastern governments accused of oppressing their people.

There already have been several Anonymous-related arrests in Europe on suspicion of computer-related crimes. Dutch police arrested two teenage males in December; both are awaiting trial. And U.K. police in January arrested five males aged 15 years to 26 years, who currently are on bail and haven't been charged.

In the U.S., Federal Bureau of Investigation agents conducted more than 40 searches of the homes of alleged Anonymous members across the country in January, in an investigation being conducted in conjunction with the U.S. Secret Service. No arrests have been made following those searches, but Anonymous is well-known to U.S. law enforcement.

In recent years, U.S. authorities have successfully prosecuted at least two individuals that participated in attacks by the group on the Church of Scientology.

WSJ Article