For three pennies an hour, hackers can rent ‘s servers to wage cyber attacks such as the one that crippled Sony Corp.’s PlayStation Network and led to the second-largest online data breach in U.S. history.
A hacker used Amazon’s Elastic Computer Cloud, or EC2, service to attack Sony’s online entertainment systems last month, a person with knowledge of the matter said Friday. The intruder, who used a bogus name to set up an account that’s now disabled, didn’t hack into Amazon’s servers, the person said.
The incident helps illustrate the dilemma facing Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos: The cloud-computing service is as cheap and convenient for hackers as it is for customers such as Netflix Inc. and Eli Lilly & Co. Last month’s attack on Sony compromised more than 100 million customer accounts.
Denver Post staff and wire reports
