Amazon.com’s cloud servers were used by hackers to attack Sony’s PlayStation Network online gaming service, according to Bloomberg.
Citing an unnamed source, Bloomberg said that the hackers signed up for a legitimate Amazon web services account, which allows companies to rent data center computing power to power web-based businesses.
The hackers used an alias to rent a server through Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud service and launched the attack from there, according to the source. The account has since been shut down.
The attack brought down the PlayStation Network, which has 77 million registered users, as well as Sony’s Qriocity and The Station services. All told, more than 100 million accounts have been compromised. Sony and Amazon declined comment to Bloomberg. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t say if the discovery of the rented server will give law enforcement enough leads to make an arrest in the case.