U.K. Man Arrested in Investigation of Sony PlayStation Hack

An 18-year-old man in northwest England was arrested by U.K. police in an investigation linked to the Christmas Day hacking of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)’s Xbox Live and Sony Corp.

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(6758)’s PlayStation Network Internet services.

British officers working with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested the man on “suspicion of unauthorized access to computer material,” and threats to kill, Merseyside Police said in astatement.

The Internet services were pushed offline on Dec. 25 with hackers known as the Lizard Squad later claiming responsibility.

The video-game networks were hacked on the same day as the film “The Interview” was released online, after major U.S. theaters decided not to show the movie last month following a series of hacking incidents at Sony’s TV and film unit. A different group called Guardians of Peace claimed responsibility for infiltrating Sony Pictures Entertainment’s servers, destroying data, exposing Hollywood secrets, and forcing the movie studio to cancel the release of the comedy in cinemas. That group and Lizard Squad had threatened further disruptions on Christmas Day.

Police today said they seized a number of digital devices at the suspect’s home in Southport, England, north of Liverpool.

“We are still at the early stages of the investigation and there is still much work to be done,” Craig Jones, Head of cybercrime at the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit, said in a statement. “Cybercrime is an issue which has no boundaries and affects people on a local, regional and global level.”

Representatives from Microsoft and Sony weren’t immediately available for comment.

Cybercriminals previously targeted Sony in 2011 after it sued a young researcher when he exposed security vulnerabilities in the PlayStation 3 console. The 2011 hack involved the theft of personal data on 77 million PSN users.