Sony Pictures has fallen victim to a widespread hack with employees unable to access their work computers for much of Monday.
According to multiple reports and accounts on the Reddit website, the invasion has brought the company to a standstill, making it impossible for staff to log on to their machines.
The hacking collective, which is referring to itself by the monicker #GOP, has left a message on the employee’s computers claiming to have obtained “top secret” data.
The message (pictured) explains that if Sony Pictures refuses to “obey” the hackers unspecified demands by 11PM GMT on Monday 24 November, the data will be shown “to the world.”
The .zip file listed by the hackers in their warning message is said to include documents from an employee server, potentially including sensitive records and password files, which probably enabled the hackers to commandeer several official Sony Twitter accounts on Monday.
One Sony source told Deadline the company has been “completely paralysed” by the hack, while another told The Next Web “a single server was compromised and the attack was spread from there.” The same source admitted Sony Pictures employees are all working from home on Monday, while the only official comment from Sony states: “We are investigating an IT matter.”
This isn’t the first time Sony has struggled with hackers in recent years. Back in 2011, the PlayStation Network suffered a devastating hack, which saw the user date of millions of customers exposed and caused a long outage for the PSN platform as Sony sought a solution.
The 11PM deadline is fast approaching so all could be revealed before the night is out. We’ll keep you posted should there be any further developments, but we imagine there are a few nervous folks on the Sony campus right now.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
