Sony blames hacker group Anonymous for latest attack

Sony suggested the vigilante hacker group Anonymous might be responsible for the second attack on the firm in recent weeks.

In a letter to lawmakers released Wednesday, the firm said it had found a file on one of its servers named "Anonymous", which is also the moniker of the hacker group that has attacked payment processing firms that cut ties with WikiLeaks in response to pressure from the U.S. government. The file contained the words "We are Legion."

"The attacks were coordinated against Sony for exercising its rights in a civil action in the United States District Court in San Francisco against a hacker," Sony chairman Kazuo Hirai said in the letter.

"What is becoming more and more evident is that Sony has been the victim of a very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyber attack designed to steal personal and credit card information for illegal purposes."

Sony skipped Wednesday's data breach hearing in front of the House Energy and Commerce Manufacturing subpanel, much to the displeasure of chairwoman Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.).

Mack said she was frustrated and disappointed by the firm's failure to appear to discuss the attacks on the PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment that have put the personal information of 100 million consumers in danger.

"The data breach involving Sony's PlayStation Network has the potential to become the 'Great Brink's Robbery' of cyber attacks," Bono Mack said. "And the 'take' keeps going up."

Mack called the refusals to testify by both Sony and the email-marketing firm Epsilon, which also recently experienced a massive data breach, "unacceptable."

"What about the millions of American consumers who are still twisting in the wind because of these breaches? They deserve some straight answers, and I am determined to get them," Bono Mack said.

Several lawmakers criticized Sony for taking almost a week before notifying consumers, but in his letter Hirai said Sony notified authorities as soon as it was certain of the breach and had to make sure its system was secure before going public.

"I am of course aware of the criticism Sony has received for the time taken to disclose information to our customers," Hirai wrote.

"I hope you can appreciate the extraordinary nature of the events the company was facing — brought on by a criminal hacker whose activity was neither immediately nor easily ascertainable."

The hearing featured witnesses from the Secret Service and Federal Trade Commission along with privacy advocates, all of whom agreed when asked that the industry's current efforts with respect to data security are insufficient.

Bono Mack said she plans to reintroduce an updated version of her data privacy bill but declined to specify a timeline. All four witnesses said Congress should pass comprehensive data security legislation that would pre-empt the current patchwork system of individual state laws.