FBI charges US student over Sony Pictures attack

 

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By Stewart Mitchell

Posted on 23 Sep 2011 at 10:28

The FBI has arrested more alleged members of hacking groups LulzSec and Anonymous in relation to attacks on Sony Pictures earlier this year.

The attack saw the personal information of 37,000 Sony customers stolen and the FBI has led a global manhunt for the perpetrators of a series of attacks on Sony and other companies, claimed by LulzSec.

According to Bloomberg, a 23-year-old Arizona student was charged with one count each of conspiracy and unauthorised impairment of a protected computer and faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of both counts.

Cody Kretsinger is the first person arrested in the US in connection with LulzSec, although arrests have been made in the UK with FBI assistance, and the student was ordered to use his computer only for college work until post-indictment arraignment on 11 October.

The authorities claim Kretsinger, known online as “recursion,” stole the information from Sony and gave it to a LulzSec member to post online.

According to Fox News, two other men - Christopher Doyon, 47, from California, and 26-year-old Joshua Covelli from Ohio - were charged with conspiracy to cause damage to a protected computer.