Second LulzSec hacker sentenced in California federal court

According to a press release issued by federal prosecutors on Thursday, August 8, 2013,  Raynaldo Rivera (known online as "neuron") "was sentenced  . . . to one year and one day in federal prison for participating in an extensive computer attack that compromised the computer systems of Sony Pictures Entertainment." According to the release, District Judge John A. Kronstadt with the Central District Court of California ordered Rivera to "13 months of home detention, to perform 1,000 hours of community service and to pay $605, 663 in restitution," in addition to his prison sentence. Rivera is the second member of the "hacking group" to be sentenced for involvement in the Sony Pictures hack, which exposed online the personal information of over 130,000 individuals.

According to a press release by the Federal Bureau of Investigations back on August 28, 2012, Rivera surrendered to authorities after a sealed indictment was issued by a federal grand jury on August 22, 2012. The FBI press release briefly described the indictment, as follows

The indictment alleges that in order to carry out the attack, Rivera allegedly used a proxy server in an attempt to mask or hide his Internet protocol (IP) address. The indictment alleges that Rivera and co-conspirators, including defendant Cody Kretsinger, who was indicted in September 2011 in connection with the same intrusion, obtained confidential information from Sony Pictures’ computer systems using an SQL injection attack against its website. An SQL injection attack is a technique commonly used by hackers to exploit vulnerabilities and steal information. The indictment alleges that Rivera and his co-conspirators distributed the stolen information, including by posting the data on LulzSec’s website, and by announcing the attack via its Twitter account.

Rivera would plead guilty in October 2012 for conspiring to cause damage to a protected computer. As the recent press release details, Kretsinger (known online as "recursion") was sentenced by Judge Kronstadt back in April. Kretsinger's sentence, which was similar to the Rivera order, was also detailed in the recent press release

In addition to [a prison term of one year and one day], Judge Kronstadt ordered Kretsinger to serve one year of home detention following the completion of his prison sentence, to perform 1,000 hours of community service, and to pay $605,663 in restitution.

Author's Note: For a little more information about the Sony Pictures hack by LulzSec (and a great read), I would suggest Parmy Olson 2012 book, We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency.