17 May 2013

Hackers sentenced to prison

10:09 am on 17 May 2013

A group of British hackers who damaged computer networks run by Sony, the CIA and other agencies in 2011, have been sentenced to prison.

The four men, members of a hacking collective known as LulzSec, carried out the cyber attacks in 2011. All had pleaded guilty.

Judge Deborah Taylor said in London on Thursday the group had wreaked havoc and destruction, hiding behind aliases in the safety of their bedrooms while seeking maximum publicity.

They hacked into Pentagon computers, crashed the CIA's website and stole millions of items of private individuals' data such as passwords and user names and posted them online.

Sony lost details relating to 26.4 million customers in the attack.