Sony Pictures hacked and business secrets held for ransom

Hackers who call themselves 'Guardians of Peace' claim they possess a huge trove of confidential data which they threaten to release if their demands are not met.

What the group wants from Sony Pictures is unclear: a message popped up on all internal computers demanding cooperation before 23.00 GMT (a few hours ago).

The hackers released a list of files claimed to be in their possession to the public. People who looked at them tell the list is extremely long and contains filenames like:

Angelina Jolie passport.pdf
Deals.pst
FY2015_WA.xls
Extranet Oracle & SQL passwords 4.3.06.txt

So emails, private information and up to date financial budgets and this is just a small sample. Most seems to be sensitive stuff.

Apparently Sony Pictures is in lockdown mode: all computers off, no emails, nothing. The official statement is 'They are researching an IT issue'.

Nothing happened after the deadline passed so either it was bluff (unlikely, but possible at this moment) or hackers and Sony are discussing how to proceed.

#Tech

 
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14 Responses to Sony Pictures hacked and business secrets held for ransom

  1. Max Huijgen says:

    That's a different story +Simon Cousins This is about sony pictures.

  2. Chrono Tata says:

    One thing I've always wondered: why are all these hacker groups so partial to terrible 1990-style splash pages with crappy gif arts.

  3. Julian Bond says:

    +Chrono Tata Because they're living in a film written by Hollywood script writers. Or maybe it's because Geocities didn't close down. It just found a way of travelling into the future.

  4. Noze P. says:

    Im wondering, wtf this hack has to do with peace? I dont know go hack ISIS's money out to space, track pedo's down and corruption…would make sense to belong to a group with a name like that

  5. Max Huijgen says:

    How many filenames are there in total? +Gert van Dijk

  6. I can't imagine Sony Pictures would have a PDF of Angelina Jolie's passport, so this smells fishy to me.

  7. Max Huijgen says:

    I'm not sure about US legislation, but in the EU an employer needs a copy of the passport of the employees +John A. Tamplin

  8. Max Huijgen says:

    The excerpts I have seen from the list (about 200 samples of filenames) seem very believable. Instead of 'logical' made-up names and documents there are lots of docs which would be on real servers in an organization.

    For instance: someone grepped on 'porn' and found two employees with a name with porn in it. These people can be found on LinkedIn and are not employees of Sony Pictures.

    A hacker club wouldn't make it up.

  9. Noze P. says:

    Technically you need an ID of some kind to work , even if your name is Angelina Jolie

  10. +Noze P. In the u.s. a copy of an official id would be for the owners protection. Its not a law. Think about Angelina. We working for Hollywood there is no confusion as to who she was even before she started acting. They knew her dad.

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