LulzSec hacker pleads guilty to Sony Pictures attack, faces prison sentence

Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
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Raynaldo Rivera, from Tempe, Arizona, has admitted hacking into computer systems belonging to Sony Pictures, and stealing the personal information and passwords of thousands of innocent internet users

The attack, which took place in May last year, was part of a concerted attack against Sony websites by LulzSec and Anonymous hackers during 2011.

Rivera, who was arrested by the FBI in August, admitted his guilt in the form of a plea agreement filed with Los Angeles Federal Court.

Rivera – who used online nicknames including “neuron”, “royal”, and “wildicv” – admitted launching an SQL injection attack against the Sony Pictures website, extracting confidential and personal user information – such as the names, birth dates, addresses, emails,…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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