'The Lulz Boat (Lulz Security)' Hacker Group Attempts to Compromise 1 Million Accounts in Sony Website Attack

The Lulz Boat hacker group, previously responsible for hitting the PBS Website and posting a fake 'Tupac Still Alive' story, is back at it again only this time they set their sails destined for over 1 million user accounts on Sony's website.

Sony cannot catch a break lately getting hit with yet a second hacking attack within just the past few months. The latest hack comes after an initial attack back in April that resulted in 70 million Sony PlayStation Network Users' personal information being stolen resulting in temporarily taking down the PSN gaming network.

If you ever wondered where the more experienced hackers have been in the past few years, wonder no more because they are thriving and encouraged to take on anyone who gets in their way through any means. The hacker group dubbed 'The Lulz Boat' or 'Lulz Security', advertised its Sony hack initially on a clever ASCII character art (Figure 1. below) in a press release posted on their lulzsecurity.com website. They then began to post Twitter messages about its 'Sownage' campaign, which would turn out to be an attack that compromised Sony's cache of user data. The Lulz group later posted a web address that included a data dump of Sony user data encouraging other hackers to 'tear the living shit out of it while you can; take from them everything!'

Figure 1. LulzSecurity.com hacker site ASCII character art image posted on the home page during Sony website attack.

With such a bold statement, the Lulz hackers have aimed to take claim of obtaining large amounts of user data from the SonyPictures.com website. Such a blow to Sony would be devastating while they are still recuperating from an attack in April that forced Sony to take down their PlayStation gaming network virtually ceasing all online Sony PlayStation gaming activity. So far, Sony representatives have yet to confirm of any of the potentially compromised data legitimately being what Lulz claims to be admin passwords, 75,000 music codes and 3.5 million music coupons.

Powerful hacker groups, such as the Lulz group, appear to be somewhat conceded or pretentious in their actions, and rightfully so in many cases where they compromise genuine online user data. These hacker groups are able to attack websites to gather user data that may allow other hackers to break into several online accounts. You must remember, a large percentage of computer users online, as much as 88% of USA and UK online computer users revealed in a 2008 Accenture consultancy survey, repeat the use of passwords. This simply means that once a hacker is able to obtain just one online password from a computer user they could fundamentally access many other online accounts belonging to the same user.

In this day and age, it is obvious that there is no sure escape from hackers stealing information via online websites and data centers. Just look at some of the latest hacking incidents that resulted in the large amounts of online user data being compromised. With the rising number of network breaches and website hacking attacks, will you opt to utilize a different password for all of your online accounts? Have you already taken the necessary steps to keep your Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and other online accounts out of the reach of hackers?