Facebook confirmed on Wednesday that it has hired George Hotz, a celebrated hacker known as "GeoHot" who was sued by Sony for hacking the Japanese company's PlayStation 3 game console.

A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed in an email to AFP that Hotz had been hired by the social network but declined to say when he had started or what he was doing for the Palo Alto, California-based company.

Hotz, who is credited with being the first person to go public with a way to hack into an iPhone, reached a settlement with Sony in April in the PS3 hacking case.

Sony had accused Hotz of violating federal law by posting online information that could be used to circumvent the PS3 security system and allow for play of pirated videogames.