Who Hacked the PlayStation Network in 2011? Anonymous Collective, Exploiting Unpatched Apache Struts

The **2011 PlayStation Network breach** was attributed to the hacktivist collective **Anonymous**, though the group's decentralized nature makes specific attribution difficult.

What Happened

• Dates: April 17–19, 2011 (intrusion); PSN offline until June 2011.
• Impact: ~77 million accounts compromised. Data stolen: names, addresses, emails, birthdates, login credentials, **possibly credit card info** (encrypted, but keys may have been accessed).
• Vector: Exploited a known vulnerability in an outdated **Apache Struts** framework on Sony's web servers (CVE-2010-1871 / CVE-2011-0013).

Anonymous' Role

• Anonymous is a **loose collective**, not a hierarchy. "Operation Sony" was declared in retaliation for Sony's lawsuit against George Hotz (geohot) over PS3 jailbreaking.
• Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks preceded the breach; the actual data exfiltration may have been a splinter group or opportunists using Anonymous' cover.
• No individuals were conclusively identified/prosecuted for the data theft.

Aftermath

• Sony spent ~$171M on remediation, identity theft protection, "Welcome Back" free games.
• PSN rebuilt with improved encryption, 2FA, dedicated security team.
• Prompted global scrutiny of corporate data protection (GDPR precursor).

Key Takeaway: The breach was enabled by **unpatched server software**—a failure of basic hygiene, not an unstoppable "super-hack."