The attack on the Sony PlayStation Network (PSN) which causes the network down to a month was allegedly the hacker done through Amazon’s Elastic Computer Cloud, or EC2 service.

A number of speakers who understand the problem told Bloomberg, whoever the perpetrators of attacks using EC2 service to hijack the PSN servers and result in one of the largest data theft in history.

A hacker used Amazon’s Elastic Computer Cloud service to attack Sony’s online entertainment systems last month, a person with knowledge of the matter said May 13. 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.

“Anyone can go get an Amazon account and use it anonymously,” said Pete Malcolm, chief executive officer of Abiquo Inc., a Redwood City, California-based company that helps customers manage data internally and through cloud computing. “If they have computers in their back bedroom they are much easier to trace than if they are on Amazon’s Web Services.”

Cloud services are also attractive for hackers because the use of multiple servers can facilitate tasks such as cracking passwords, said Ray Valdes, an analyst at Gartner Inc. Amazon could improve measures to weed out bogus accounts, he said.

The use of hijacked or rented servers to launch attacks is typical for sophisticated hackers, according to Hilbert. Chinese hackers used the servers of a major U.S. Internet service provider in 2008 to break into a government agency and several defense contractors, according to a secret Nov. 3, 2008, cable exposed by Wikileaks.

The hackers “used at least three separate systems at the unnamed ISP in multiple network intrusions and have exfiltrated data via these systems,” according to the cable.

In some cases, hackers hide their tracks beneath several layers of proxy servers that can span the globe. A recent attack against computers in South Korea was controlled from servers in more than 20 different countries, according to Georg Wicherski, a security analyst at Santa Clara, California-based McAfee Inc. (MFE) The identity of the offenders is unknown, he said.

Last month’s incursion was “very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyber attack,” Sony has said.

“This puts cloud computing into proper perspective,” Jennex said. “Everybody’s been thinking it’s chic and ignoring the security aspect. I think this reminds companies that things that make them great need to stay under their control.”