13-Year-Old Boy Arrested In Connection With Sony Hacking Crime
What is believed to be the most vicious cyber attack in history, and has been blamed on everyone from North Korea to Russian hackers,Â is nowÂ being directly linked to a 13-year-old boy from small town Waterville, Maine.Many believed that North Korea and supreme leader Kim Jong-un were responsible for the massive hack against Sony Entertainment because of the Seth Rogen comedy film The Interview, a movieÂ about the successful assassination of Jong-un. Even President Obama issued an official statement, denouncing Sonyâs decision to give into threats and pull the film from its Christmas Day opening.The teenager, whose identity is not yet being released due to his age, but uses the online handle âCereal Killer,â confessed to the crime in an email sent to federal investigators.âBasically, he sent in emails confessing to the crime, and blamed it all on the fact that all his friends had gotten Playstation 4 consoles, and he was stuck with the old XBox 360. He felt abandoned, and like he had no friends left in the world,âÂ FBI spokesperson Gerald Carmichael told the Associated Press. âSo he wanted to âmake Sony pay.â Curiously, Sony Entertainment, as in the films, and Sonyâs video game division, are two completely separate entities.ââItâs just what I could get into, you know?â said the wayward teen in his emails. âI tried to break into the game division computers first. I thought I could maybe steal some unfinished games and release them online. But that one was too hard. Instead, I got into the movie studio computers, and got to watchÂ AnnieÂ before it came out. The movie really, really sucked, by the way.ââThe boy is clearly a genius when it comes to electronics and the computer language in this technology age,â said Charmichael. âIt reminds me of the movieÂ War GamesÂ a little bit, that one from the 80s with Matthew Broderick. Here is this boy savant, who is just amazing at computers.Â It is really unbelievable that a young child could possess so much dangerous knowledge. Hell, I couldnât do what he did, and Iâve been studying computers for ages.âWhile the crime is being thoroughly investigated, the teenÂ will be kept in the custody of the FBI. Carmichael declined to discuss what charges or any possible punishments the boy is facing.