Latest Sony Hack is Some Serious Shit

Remember last year when Sony was getting hacked on a seemingly daily basis? This time someone, possibly North Korea, went after Sony Pictures, and not only did the hackers dump unreleased movies on to the net, but gigabytes of personal information.

There's more, and no one's really certain who's behind it. According to one tech podcast I listen to, the FBI has seized many of the infected PCs and told Sony to destroy the other PCs, and to not connect them to the internet.

Whomever did it, even if you assume that this division of Sony was as lax on security as the Playstation division, has some serious skills. Imagine what would happen if they had done this kind of attack on an electric company, or other critical infrastructure system. Hopefully, every other major corporation/industry is reevaluating their computer systems in the wake of this attack. I won't be surprised, however, if a few more businesses or government agencies get hit with this kind of attack before some real thought is put into better hardening computer systems.

Said it before, the next 9/11 will be cyber.

http://gizmodo.com/sony-kept-thousa...medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenewspulsenews

Its like Sony accepted an invitation to go camping with Roman Polanski, Bill Cosby, and a roofie salesman.

Remember this incident when people try to claim that a corporation would never do something which sabotaged their operations.

You just know one of them will end up roofied and butt fucked before the night is done.

I think Dicky is right. I posted this before, but this is a real time map of active attacks between various countries. You'll notice where most of it originates:

http://map.ipviking.com/

Don't know why, but it make me think of this case.

Maybe we're looking at this all wrong. Kenya, no doubt with help from the US, just took down a major Chinese hacking operation.

(more at the link)

That sounds more like a Chinese military operation than it does an organized crime one. But why would China have a bone to pick with Sony? Well, Sony is a Japanese corporation, and China and Japan haven't exactly been getting along with one another.

(more at that link, as well)

Now, consider this: Neither Japan and China are going to want to start a shooting war over those islands, but its pretty clear both of them want to maintain control over the islands. Sony, in addition to being an electronics and entertainment giant, is also one of the largest insurance companies in Asia. No doubt the insurance policies the entertainment division use are handled by the insurance division. The computer systems will be connected in some manner, and going directly after the insurance division will almost certainly point people towards China (if not the government, then the organized gangs who're increasingly moving into cyber-crime), but if you attack the entertainment division which just happens to be releasing a movie that North Korea doesn't like, then attention is going to be pointed in their direction, and not yours.

Apparently, some, but not all of Sony's computers were hit with malware which destroyed both files and hardware. If those machines were used as injection points to the insurance company's systems, destroying the files and hardware would make it difficult for this to be discovered. Once inside the insurance divisions systems, the Chinese government would have access to data which would enable them to engage in economic warfare against Japan. Clever, doncha think?

VOA news says North Korea is a suspect

Later this month, Sony Pictures plans to release a comedy film called The Interview. It tells about an imaginary plot against North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Since the attack, many people are wondering if North Korea was responsible for hacking into the computers.

North Korean officials have denounced the movie and promised to “mercilessly destroy” anyone connected to it. The film stars actors Seth Rogen and James Franco. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency asks for their help in a plot against the life of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

More at the link.

No shit, sherlock. It was mentioned in the OP.

Having just watched the first episode of Black Mirror (its on Netflix), I have to say that's not terribly imaginative. (A terrorist kidnaps a British princess and threatens to kill her unless the Prime Minister has sex with a pig on live TV.) It doesn't sound as dramatic as a cyber 9/11, I'll admit, but watch the episode, and you'll see that something like that has the possibility of being even more disrupting.

Let them.

http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/sony-hacked-again-this-time-the-playstation-store/

I really don't think that North Korea would have the capability to do this.

Meet Bureau 121.

Two words: Neely O'Hara.

In the second half of this podcast, they spend time talking, in great detail, about the Sony hack. It turns out that something like 11 terabytes worth of data was stolen from Sony. Honestly, I don't see how Sony is going to stay in business after this. We have only the barest of idea of what the hackers got, and Sony's going to have to rebuild their entire IT infrastructure from scratch. Were I an exec at Sony, seppuku would like a good career move at this point.

A Sony employee speaks out.

And the latest leak of emails shows why Sony should be burned to the ground.

More at the link.

Jump Street/MIB Crossover ?



Yeah Sony needs killing just for that idea.

And I've been reading up on some of these leaked emails. Not the emails themselves but what's been reported. Emails about people and their medical information. Detailed medical information on them and their families and their insurance problems. So detailed as to include names, SSN, costs and medical procedures being fought over.

And that's just what the hackers have released at this point. There is no telling what other dirt they've got.

Oh wow was just reading this......

http://www.cnet.com/news/fbi-official-calls-sony-attackers-organized-persistent/

Yeah I'm starting to believe it was North Korea.

The one thing that has me curious is the "stolen" movie slate.

1 block buster already in theaters...

4 movies no one really cares about...


I just find that odd.

Who knows how many other movies they have. Hell with 11 terabytes the hackers might still be sifting through everything.

Just one thought is...it could be VERY profitable to extort money out of Sony to not dump those on the internet.

Problem is that the hackers have already leaked and there is no way Sony could trust them to not leak after paying them.

The north Koreans really don't like Sony, huh?

Sony has so many billions in intellectual properity they are not going out of business any time soon though they no doubt will need a whole new IT department and hardware/software set up. Just imagine how many back doors and trojans the North Koreans slipped in there.

If Sony, the movie studio, had any brains they would have disconnected every single computer they own from the internet.

Reading some more but I keep seeing 100 terrabytes worth of stuff stolen. Good lord if that's true........

...they've got a damned good internet connection.
I'm pacing back and forth, and swearing at the screen trying to get a stupid gigabyte through my fuggin' DSL.