It would appear that last week’s cyber attack against Sony Pictures is far more serious than anyone initially suspected. The “Guardians of Peace” have apparently been leaking unreleased movies from the studio onto torrent sites, long before they are scheduled to reach cinemas. The four movies are apparently only a tiny fraction of the 11TB of data that has been taken, and it wouldn’t be too much to expect more leaks like this to happen in the near future.
The four unreleased movies are Still Alice, Annie, Mr Turner, and To Write Her With Love; not exactly what one would call highly anticipated titles, although the hacker group did also release a screening copy of World War II drama Fury. It is unknown how this leak will affect Sony Pictures’ holiday performance, as at least two of those movies were slated for the lucrative Christmas season.
While this leak is indeed worrying to the rest of the movie industry, it is unknown what other information the hackers are going to release. The Guardians of Peace have informed Sony that they will release more stolen data if their demands are not met, although no real demands have actually been made. What is currently feared is that the hackers will release the personal information of the thousands of employees that work for the studio, exposing them to potential identity theft from just about anyone.
On a similar note, Recode has reported that Sony Pictures is investigating the possibility that the attack came from Chinese hackers working for North Korea. This is due to the timing of the attack which coincided with the release of “The Interview”, a comedy in which two journalists are enlisted by the CIA to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. North Korea has condemned the movie and had originally pledge to retaliate against the US if the film was released.
While there is no concrete evidence that this massive attack was indeed done by the communist regime, nobody is as of yet prepared to rule it out.
[Source: Engadget, TorrentFreak]
