'Anonymous' Hackers Arrested for Hacking Sony, Enel and .Gov Websites

The New York Times reports today that Spanish Police have arrested the local "Leadership" of notorious "hacktivist" group Anonymous, found to be involved in recent Sony PlayStation Network hacking.

Three members suspected to be a part of the Anonymous hacking group were arrested in Almeira, Barcelona and Valencia in Spain on Friday morning, according to a report.

Anonymous, that has publicly taken credit for attacks against PayPal, Visa and others because those institutions declined to transmit donations to whistleblower-site WikiLeaks, has hacked Sony PlayStation few months ago, compelling the Japanese technology gain to a million dollars out of court settlements with them. But Anonymous had denied its involvement in any Sony Network Hacking there after.

The detention of the men is the result of a police investigation that has been running since last October, when the Spanish Ministry of Culture's website was attacked in protest against the introduction of harsher penalties for piracy and illegal downloads.

Anonymous Hacking Group members involvement in the Sony PlayStation Network hack was not immediately clear, but after combing through 2,000,000 lines of IRC chat logs and websites used by the group, the authorities believed there was enough evidence to charge the suspects. With these arrests, Spain joins the UK, US, and Netherlands in having taken police action against Anonymous members.

Some of the attacks made by Anonymous members used a web-based tool called Loic to bombard target sites with data. The websites of PayPal, Mastercard and Amazon were all targeted using this tool.

The suspects are expected to be charged with forming an illegal association to attack public and corporate Web sites. This could potentially land them with up to three years in prison.