Sony Cyberattack Arrests Made in Spain

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Spanish police said Friday they arrested three members of the Anonymous hacking group who allegedly directed attacks on banks, government websites and companies including Sony. Spain said it was the first police operation in the country dedicated to tracking down Anonymous, a decentralized group of activists who have mounted distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDOS) against businesses and organizations. The arrests were made in Barcelona, Alicante, and Valencia.

Those arrested helped direct the attacks on the websites for the Sony PlayStation Store, the bank BBVA, the Italian utility company ENEL and websites belonging to the governments of Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia and New Zealand, Spanish police said. The names of those arrested were not released by police.

Targets for Anonymous have included the Scientology website and companies that cut off relations with the whistleblower WikiLeaks website, such as Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Amazon.com and PostFinance, a Swiss financial institution.

The loose-knit group attracted followers who downloaded a tool called the Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC), a simple DDOS tool to aid in the attacks. Some of the more technically adept Anonymous members used botnets, or networks of hacked computers, to carry out DDOS attacks.

In Spain, the police said Anonymous has attacked the websites of the Catalan police, and in May, the Central Electoral Board and the UGT trade union.

How The Investigation Worked

The country's Technological Investigation Brigade, part of the National Police, analyzed more than 2 million lines of chat logs as well as web pages to find those who were arrested.

The investigation started in October 2010 after Spain's Ministry of Culture came under a DDOS attack that was organized through websites and chat networks by Anonymous, police said.

During one of the raids, police found software used to create malware. The group also allegedly used sophisticated techniques to encrypt their communications, which make it difficult for police to intercept and identify. Two of those arrested did not even have their own Internet connection and instead relied on hacking other Wi-Fi networks for their activities.

In January, U.K. police arrested three teenagers and two other people for allegedly taking part in a series of denial-of-service attacks against major websites as part of Anonymous. The five males, who range in age from 15 to 26, were charged with offenses under the Computer Misuse Act of 1990.

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More Anonymous arrests made in Turkey

A few days after people who are allegedly part of the hacker group Anonymous were arrested in Spain, even more arrests were made in Turkey in relation to that same group. Security Week reports that 32 people have been detained after police in Turkey conducted raids in 12 cities, according to the state run news agency.

According to the report, Anonymous had "recently targeted Web sites of the country's telecommunications watchdog, the prime minister's office and parliament as a protest to Turkey's plans to introduce Internet filters." These actions have come after three suspect who are also believed to be part of Anonymous were arrested on Friday by Spain's National Police. Security Week's story claims that after Friday's arrests in Spain "the group responded on Saturday with a DDoS attack against the Spanish National Police Web site."

The group has also officially downplayed the arrests in Spain, saying that while the police there claim that they have taken out the leaders of the group in that country, Anonymous states, "There are no leaders of Anonymous. Anonymous is not based on personal distinction."

The Anonymous group has admitted to launching a denial of service attack earlier this year against Sony. Sony has claimed it has also found evidence that members of Anonymous were the cause of the cyber attack last April that led to the month long shut down of Sony's Playstation Network online service. Officially, Anonymous has stated it has had nothing to do with the Playstation Network cyber attacks.

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