Playstation Network Down Globally

[Monseratto]

Hmmm...using a legit server to hack into the Playstation Network.

Amazon EC2 used as proxy in PSN hacks
updated 07:15 am EDT, Sat May 14, 2011


Amazon’s EC2 cloud-based rental server service is reported to have been utilized as a proxy in the Sony PlayStation Network hacks. According to Bloomberg, a person with knowledge of the matter has revealed that the hackers used an alias to rent an Amazon EC2 server and used it as the staging point for the attack. The person said that Amazon has closed the account used for the hack.

The strategy that the hackers used to rent, or even hijack, a server is one that is often used by sophisticated cyber-criminals. As server farms become commonplace, the ability for hackers to misdirect investigators has become easier. When asked for comment, Sony’s Patrick Seybold said, “We’re continuing to work with law enforcement in an ongoing investigation into the situation. As such, we will not comment further on this matter.”

Security experts believe that the FBI is likely to issue a subpoena to Amazon in order to conduct a forensic examination of the account the hackers used and to conduct a search of the affected Amazon server.

Read more: http://www.electronista.com/articles...#ixzz1MViZFSnQ

[Monseratto]

Es*** geek Ryan Cleary 'is Sony hacker’ | The Sun |News

A NERDY teenager was arrested yesterday on suspicion of masterminding a global computer hacking operation from his bedroom.
Oddball student Ryan Cleary, 19, was held by cops who swooped on his mum's home in Wickford, Es***.

He is thought to be a leader of LulzSec, a group claiming responsibility for hacking into Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency and the US Senate.

Geeky Cleary is also suspected of being the brains behind hacking raids on computer game giants Sony and Nintendo - and America's CIA secret service.

He allegedly did it all behind the closed curtains of his bedroom at his mum's extended bungalow. And a computer expert said last night: "It's the true nature of the internet that Wickford could be the centre of a global hacking movement."

Reclusive Cleary was arrested by cops yesterday in a "pre-planned intelligence-led operation".

The swoop was part of a joint investigation by Scotland Yard and the FBI.

American authorities were kept informed. And Cleary - said to be "very bright" - could eventually face extradition to the US.

Detectives believe he is a "major player" with LulzSec, a hackers' group which claimed responsibility for the theft of 77million Sony PlayStation customers' names, addresses, bank details and passwords.

The organisation - said to have links with the notorious WikiLeaks whistleblowers - is a splinter group of Anonymous, which last year launched digital assaults on MasterCard and PayPal.

LulzSec is believed to have initially targeted only gaming firms and US broadcasters including PBS and Fox.

The group cracked a cult computer joke after invading PBS, writing "All your base are belong to LulzSec" across its website above the hackers' moustachioed toff logo.

But on Twitter, it recently declared its intention to break into government websites and leak confidential documents. And claims it has lifted the entire 2011 UK census database are being probed.

Cleary, a heavy metal fan who has been thrown out of two schools for disruptive behaviour, was arrested by officers from Scotland Yard's specialist e-crime unit.

They took him in after quizzing him for five hours at the £330,000 home he shares with mum Rita, 45.

Police sources said a "mind-boggling amount of information" had been seized from one of the nerdy lad's two computers.

They added the swoop was just the start of what could be a "long and complex" inquiry - and further arrests were possible.

Last night it emerged Cleary's identity may have been blown by rival hackers who published his name, address and mobile number on the web earlier this month.

Stunned Rita, a nurse at Southend Hospital, said her son "lives his life online".

She told how he has a history of mental illness and suffers from agoraphobia, a fear of open spaces, but is highly intelligent. Rita added that she thought he was playing computer games in his bedroom and cannot believe he was hacking into security agency websites.

The mum said cops had talked to Cleary in "computer speak" and she could not understand the discussion.

Journalist James Nixon, who interviewed Cleary last month for technology website Thinq, said: "He's in a bit of a bubble. He is very much aware of the power that he has in his hands but not necessarily the repercussions."

Cleary's half-brother Mitchell, 22, said: "Ryan is obsessed with computers. He's a bit of a geek. That's all he does - he's a recluse. He locks himself in his room every day, closes the curtains and spends hours at a time online.

"He isn't into football or sports. Computers are everything to him. I barely see him. My mum is finding this extremely hard."

Mitchell added: "Ryan used to be part of WikiLeaks. He has upset someone doing that and they made a Facebook page having a go at him."

Cleary, who has a company named Arcusvoice registered in his name, was being questioned at a central London police station last night under computer misuse and fraud laws.

His father Neil, 44, is separated from his mum. The dad is thought to teach music in Peterborough, Cambs, and once worked on hit West End musical Starlight Express.

Computer security experts said Cleary's arrest is a coup for police if he is the mastermind of LulzSec. Graham Cluley, of anti-virus firm Sophos, said: "The hacker has been bloodying the nose of computer crime authorities around the world.

"But we don't know if it is one person behind LulzSec or a group."

Rik Ferguson, a security adviser at software makers Trend Micro, said: "If you have the skills you can make a name for yourself in very much the wrong way.

"Hackers have been doing it to spark chaos and for their idea of fun. But then they demonstrated a willingness to release personal information and that put people at risk. So it was not all about fun."

No messages were posted on LulzSec's Twitter account for ten hours after Cleary's arrest. Then as worldwide speculation grew about him being a lone wolf, a user came online to taunt: "Seems the glorious leader of LulzSec got arrested, it's all over now... wait... we're all still here! Which poor b*****d did they take down?"

Later, addressing law enforcement "clowns," the group insisted Cleary was a scapegoat. They said he is NOT a member and they merely use his computer server to house a legitimate chatroom.

The case prompted comparisons with that of another Briton, 45-year-old Gary McKinnon. He is wanted in the US for allegedly hacking into Pentagon and Nasa computers while searching for evidence of aliens. He faces 60 years in jail if he is extradited and convicted.

- DO you know Ryan Cleary? Call The Sun on 020 7782 4104 or email exclusive*the-sun.co.uk

Es*** geek Ryan Cleary 'is Sony hacker’ | The Sun |News

[niky]

Moral of the story? Hack all you want, but don't threaten to f*** with the government, or they'll hunt your ass down.

I hope he gets what's coming to him.

[safeorigin]

According to anon, he was dropped months ago from the organization after leaking personal information of its members and taking over anonops IRC channel. karma niya iyan for doublecrossing fellow hackers

[Monseratto]

Apparently what the authorites got was a IRC server operator. It's the logged IP addresses in his computer that is interesting... kawawa ka na if your IP address is among that, expect a visit from the feds.

LulzSec Takes Hit, Keeps On Hacking -- InformationWeek

LulzSec said the person arrested by British police, named by authorities on Wednesday as Ryan Cleary, ran a server on which one of LulzSec's many chat rooms had been hosted. "Clearly the UK police are so desperate to catch us that they've gone and arrested someone who is, at best, mildly associated with us. Lame," said the group via Twitter.

If authorities are closing in on LulzSec, the group doesn't appear to be backing off. On Wednesday, the group released, via Pastebin, contact information for what it said were two people who tried to snitch on LulzSec by "leaking some of our affiliates' logs." LulzSec alleged that the two people--named as Marshal Webb and Michael Dean Major--had orchestrated last month's hack and defacement of the Eidos Montreal website. In that attack, hackers reportedly stole information on at least 80,000 users of the company's Deus Ex: Human Revolution game.

LulzSec also warned that there had been a rash of Pastebin posts purposing to be from the group, such as the announcement that LulzSec planned to release a complete copy of the U.K. 2011 census data. "That wasn't us--don't believe fake LulzSec releases unless we put out a tweet first," the group said via its Twitter feed.

Are law enforcement agencies close to unmasking LulzSec? While British police did bust Cleary, aka "ViraL," he had already been publicly named--in anonymous Pastebin posts released last month--as someone who interacted with LulzSec members via IRC. Some posts also alleged that he was a "4chan DDoS attacker," referring to the freewheeling 4chan forum and imageboard in which all members are supposed to be anonymous.

Cleary was also mentioned in multiple tweets earlier this month from Twitter user Power2All. Those messages warned LulzSec via Twitter to "avoid and ignore lulzco IRC net, your IP will be compromised by Ryan Cleary." According to Power2All, Cleary's server logged IP addresses and leaked them to the Internet.

In the wake of Tuesday's arrest of Cleary, a post on the anti-LulzSec blog "LulzSec Exposed" also said that Cleary was "just an IRC operator" for LulzSec, and that the group's leader went by the handle of Sabu. It also said that the arrest of Cleary would give law enforcement agencies a leg up on LulzSec. "Bad news for LulzSec, count your days as we count your heads," said a blog post on LulzSec Exposed. "As Ryan is arrested, your IRC irc.lulzco.org logs are with FBI, SOCA and Interpol."

The group also alleged that LulzSec members, having been exposed, were starting to flee, and that the group's joint operations with Anonymous are a ploy to keep the LulzSec brand going. "They also want to keep the legacy of Lulzsec even after their arrests by recruiting new people ... to continue it and create havoc among security companies."

Also on Wednesday, LulzSec Exposed named Power2All, the admin for the Anonymous IRC channel (Anonops), as Netherlands-based PHP programmer Jasper Lingers. But a message via the Power2All Twitter feed fired back, "I am not lulzsec, neither anonymous. AnonOps is a platform to chat on ... Nothing illegal about a chat server."

[safeorigin]

I wonder though if they'll find out that the IP addresses are actually proxies.

scratch that. they just raided DigitalOne. hehe naka proxy nga

[Monseratto]

Yeah, thay hauled of the entire server...

The FBI launched a raid against ISP company DigitalOne's servers Tuesday morning in an attempt to catch LulzSec. Digital One had already complied with these agencies in identifying which servers hosted the IP address they were after. The raiders took several enclosures of servers, rather than the servers. The confusion apparently came from DigitalOne's use of a blade system, in which multiple servers are stored on a single Chasis. Even accounting for this confusion, the question remains: why confiscate the server?

If the FBI wanted to prevent its usage, they've failed. The server could be copied and replaced overnight with no harm. If the FBI wanted the data on the server, they could have asked for a copy. If the FBI wanted to monitor traffic, they could have inserted any number of digital surveilance programs. Instead, they decide to take the server. Is this a new bugdet-cutting initiative?

And all of this nonsensical action in order to catch LulzSec. As the New York Times reports:

A government official who declined to be named said earlier in the day that the F.B.I. was actively investigating the Lulz Security group and any affiliated hackers. The official said the F.B.I. had teamed up with other agencies in this effort, including the Central Intelligence Agency and cybercrime bureaus in Europe.

So the CIA, the FBI, and some European cybercrime bureaus walk into a bar at 1am. They confiscate the fine wine that LulzSec sipped a week ago, along with all of the wine in the bar, putting it out of business for three days because LulzSec may or may not have been there.

This is what Sun Tzu calls Supreme Excellence.

And before assuming 'necessary evil,' readers should note that the collateral from the FBI's actions has affected over 100 companies, making them more dangerous to the public in their pursuit of LulzSec than LulzSec has been in its entire existence

Continue reading on Examiner.com FBI LulzSec server takedown fails - National Anonymous | Examiner.com FBI LulzSec server takedown fails - National Anonymous | Examiner.com

[Monseratto]

Yeah, thay hauled off the server hardware...

Early Tuesday morning, the FBI raided a data center in Reston, Virginia and seized servers, causing several high-profile Web sites to go dark.

According to a New York Times report, the FBI showed up at the data center, owned by Switzerland-based DigitalOne, around 1:15am and removed the equipment. The move resulted in services like Pinboard, Instapaper, and the Curbed Network going offline.

DigitalOne chief Sergej Ostroumow sent an email to clients on Tuesday that said FBI took "3 enclosures with equipment plugged into them, possibly including your server—we cannot check it," the Times reported. The seizure affected "tens of clients," Ostroumow said.

"Sorry for the continued slow site performance from yesterday's server loss. The replacement server has been delivered and I'm setting it up," Instapaper tweeted earlier today.

The company said it was arranging to replace the blocked database with a new server.

Earlier today, Pinboard said service has stabilized, and its API was back on. Some archive links, search, global tag pages, RSS, tag clouds, and user stats were still offline.

"DigitalOne has confirmed that our server was one of the ones taken during the FBI raid. I have no reason to believe it had anything to do with us, but unfortunately these blade servers pack many to a single box," Pinboard said.

The Curbed Network is back online. "We're back! With some glitches, but our tech team's working to restore everything," the company said in a tweet that pointed to the Times article as an explanation.

The FBI has not commented on the raid, and it's unclear if it's at all related to recent hacks committed by groups like LulzSec and Anonymous. Earlier this year, the FBI said it executed more than 40 search warrants throughout the U.S. related to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks organized by Anonymous.

During an April appearance before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, Gordon M. Snow, assistant director of the FBI's cyber division, said "our cyber adversaries' capabilities are at an all-time high," and pointed to the activities of Anonymous as one example.

FBI Seizes Servers, Prompting Site Outages | News & Opinion | PCMag.com