2ND UPDATE: This Sony computer hacking episode isn’t over. The corporation’s computers are still down, in New York, overseas and on the Culver City lot of Sony Pictures, for the second day. IT experts are still working to figure out how the breach happened, and to stop a repeat. It is never opportune for something like this to interrupt a corporation’s hard work, but Thanksgiving week is probably not the worst time for it. Here’s the official line: “Sony Pictures Entertainment experienced a system disruption, which are working diligently to resolve.”
UPDATE: While it seems that a world-leading tech company would be the last to be brought down by a hacker, this Sony thing is serious. I’ve come across a still photo of the hacked message that appeared on screens, posted by a site called business2community.com. More when it comes in. SPE spokesperson Jean Guerin said “We are investigating an IT matter.” Here’s the still photo:
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EARLIER EXCLUSIVE, November 24, 10:50 am: Things have come to a standstill at Sony today, after the computers in New York and around the world were infiltrated by a hacker. As a precaution, computers in Los Angeles were shut down while the corporation deals with the breach. It has basically brought the whole global corporation to an electronic standstill. I’d heard that this began with a skull appearing on screens, and then a strangely ominous message telling users they’d been hacked by something called #GOP. It gets more bizarre as the message claims this is just the beginning and then threatens to release documents by 11 PM this evening. There is no reason given why this is happening, and no specific demands. Mentioned are websites in places around the world, some of which don’t even function. While Sony works this through, there are no corporate emails going in and out and you can’t use your computer and it’s hit or miss on whether calls are going to email. “We are down, completely paralyzed,” said a source. Waiting on reaction from Sony, but if you’re not getting your calls or emails returned from Culver City, don’t take it as an insult or reason to feel small. No comment from the studio.
I hope the hacker’s demands include the return of the rights to Spider-Man to Marvel.
!!
YES ! !
Its M Night Sham-a-lon demanding another chance for an AE re-boot
Hit Fox next! The Fantastic Four must be liberated from their ongoing torture!!
considering the large number of complete flops they have released over the last year or two, they’re probably doing it to themselves for the insurance money ;)
What are their demands in the first?
incredible story. The first question is why Sony of all companies?
Because it was vulnerable? Or someone has a beef
Stories are circulating that the hackers may have had help from disgruntled employees. Sony’s been laying off a lot of people on the Culver lot, so it wouldn’t surprise me.
Sony admitted the problem. There’s a high likelihood that many companies were probed, some were successfully penetrated and the rest haven’t said anything.
Agreed. Or they may not know that they have been, yet.
Poor IT procedures and practices. I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner! Guess David B will be looking for a new gig!
Let us not forget SONY perpetrated the first of a new generation of pernicious malware undetectable by most anti-virus software which they included on each and every SONY Music Compact Disc Audio Disc thereby infecting millions of PCs overnight, and training a new generation of hackers in their nefarious methods.
IOW, this serves them right.
Clearly you don’t know what your talking about.
Actually, it’s true.
He’s talking about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal
At the time it really was groundbreaking – this was no garden variety malware, it was one of the first rootkits to become widespread.
No, he does… Sony really did hack all of their customers computer a few years back.
2005 and it IS true, I made a ton from the repairs.
Ever notice how it’s the ones saying “you don’t know what you’re talking about” who are always the ones that don’t know what they’re talking about? I wonder why that is.
Steve, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Wait….
lol, you don’t know what you’re talking about, oh..I don’t know either.. recursive call!
LOL! I don’t know if what you say is true, or even valid, but your response (in its lean, brief, simpleness) to Hyper Media is funny to me, and made me laugh. Thanks for the smile!
Yes they did. It was a rootkit. One of the lowest levels a software can penetrate, which is why all the anti virus software of the time didn’t catch it. None of them scanned for rootkits.
“lowest levels”? Clearly you’re not familiar with the OSI model
You mean the Open Systems Interconnection model that defines how two systems talk to each other over a physical medium such as a copper wire or a glass tube?
The OSI model only applies when you talk specifically about how an application is communicating with a host other than itself.
Anon was talking specifically about the ability for this malware to attach itself in ring0 or also known as kernel mode. In this mode, the rootkit is essentially a device driver with extreme access to modify the communications paths between OS and hardware, as well as OS and User. An example would be a rootkits ability to hide itself from the process monitor list by “hooking” those calls to the OS.
The OSI model doesn’t really apply to what they were talking about.
Um…. CRAP!!! I skipped class that day!!
He just got to the OSI section in the third day of class and was trying to apply it to the situation…
Clearly you aren’t, either…
This is indeed the very reason I haven’t bought anything Sony since it happened. It is quite true, unfortunately.
11pm GMT is 3pm PST.
I prefer “2300 ZULU” because it makes me sound like a black rifle elite operator special operations secret squirrel when I’m on the internets.
Marcus, that USUALLY works … but you shouldn’t have said anything, this time. I’ve already sent the targeting data to SMERSH and you’re toast.
Seriously, I know that ZULU time (GMT or UTC) has been used for more than 50 years. In 1963, I first encountered it in the Navy, when every message had a date’time group that used ZULU time.
It’s 252345Z NOV 14 right now, getting ready to “Go New Day.”
It’s called RAYDAY now…
It would appear that Sony has three-and-a-half hours to resolve whatever the issue is before the data in question is leaked. 11 pm GMT = 6 pm EST = 3 pm PST.
“The Net” – 20th Anniversary Special Edition?!
Publicity stunt?
I think that’s unlikely. This makes them look bad. If it were planned and supposed to inspire sympathy, I think it failed.
It’s Bush’s fault!
Yea right, DORK!!!!!!
I warned about THE INTERVIEW…
Rodman ok’d it… it’s cool.
Oh no! They’re going to release Sony’s library of stock footage!!!! THE HORROR!!! Love the background from a 1990’s Alice Cooper concert.
There’s far more than that according to the file with leaked files. Financial reports, passwords, heaps of stuff. The uncompressed file with mere filenames is ~1 GB large.
THINK ON YOUR SINS
Awesome. Skyfall.
Well, it’s pretty obvious from the grammar that English is not the hackers first language.
Or at least that is what they want you to think.
Dun dun dun.
And “.ru” in the url did not lead you to the conclusion first?
35 minutes until last grain of sand falls….
Oh noes! The hacker threatens to release the information on Sony’s public-facing stock footage licensing web site!
I don’t know why you think English isn’t their first language….looks like the grammar used by most people under thirty. Maybe you haven’t noticed the “dumbing down” of this country where literacy is low priority. Can’t spell worth beans, but can paralyze an entire megacorp. Hope I get my new Playstation this xmas tho!
“Dumbing down”–the cry of the elitist snob who hates ordinary people who work for a living.
I’m an ordinary guy, I work for a living, yet I can express myself in clear English. You don’t have to speak or write like your ignorant, you just need to learn how to express yourself using good grammar.
” You don’t have to speak or write like your ignorant, ” Any chance you meant to say you’re ignorant? watch out for those rocks you are trowing in that glass ouse of yours.
You’re talking about grammar and can’t even spell “you’re” right.
your? how about you’re.
Why do you Fox News types always have to turn everything into some kind of persecution against ordinary working folk. Quit watching that garbage you call news and you’ll find out that 64% of Americans can’t name all three branches of government. But hey, they know all of the Kardashians! America is being dumbed down. And the GOP is at the forefront of that effort, teaching kids in Texas that Moses was essentially one of the Founding Fathers. But you people of course would never own up to that travesty, because you see everything through blinders, driven by your singular hatred for the man at the White House, because he happens to be black.
way to politicize idiocy itself, bash a political group no one mentioned until you posted, generalize, then work in the current president and his skin color. Gold star for being the most off topic yet divisive post today.
What makes you think I’m a Fox News lover? I’m not. I’m just tired of aging boomers bitching about young people, conveniently forgetting that they’re sounding exactly like their parents. Why do boomers think they’re so damn superior to everybody else when they’re not? (And I’m on the Boomer cusp.)
Brother, you are SO right. Boomers were spoiled by parents surviving the Depression and WWII. Boomers always got what they wanted, and never got enough. Still true. They bitch and moan when anybody talks about SS reform. I won’t see any SS retirement even though I’ve paid in for 35 years. Politicians can’t do SS reform without getting nailed by fixed income voters. The biggest Ponzi scheme on Earth is about to go down. Oh wait, just in time, Amnesty will save the system. By crashing it sooner.
BTW, remember about 2 yrs ago Sony Playstation Network went down? I think they fixed that. It’s still working.
They were not teaching that Moses was a founding father, but now we know where you get your info. LOL A little MSNBC anyone?
you go on and believe that stuff….while all your PS4 scores are released to the wind :-D
My guess is the used the #GOP to attract a attention from a certain uninformed segment of the press and public…and they aren’t found in the GOP.
So says Mr. Hyperbole.
So you’re saying ordinary people are dumb then? Sorry to correct but you can’t equate most geeks to ordinary people with “working for a living” simply because most geeks don’t work for a living, they spunge….off their parents. You can sit there all you like and deny the fact or justify it but sorry girlfriend, I have seen it, a lot. Yeah, there are a lot of forty year old dudes living in moms house on the net spunging and it’s become an epidemic. More and more the younger dinks are doing the same because of the example being set. America is friggin lazy and that is true. Always looking for that next mundane story to satiate their lust for stupidity. Always looking for the fail because the positive would never seem that interesting anymore. How sad is it that failure is held to a more regard with you monkeys than it is triumph? How sad is it that you find more pleasure in tearing down rather than building?
THIS.
That’s because the wise educators in the ivory tower decided grammar and spelling suppressed creativity. As an old retired 3rd grade teacher, I always appreciated the ability to read and understand the content of what students wrote. Call this ideological mistake what you will. I call it just plain stupid.
My first grader doesn’t have even such bad English and we’re poor as dirt, her grammar skills and sentence structuring is so much better, I doubt the authenticity of this story’s truth, as well as if it is true then it is an inside job by a low level employee with no official IT training.
that’s a big sentence Tim
It’s 3:01pm PST now and I don’t see anything.
I’m wondering if the hacker has some kind of axe to grind over Adam Sandler having long been parked at Sony lot with a rich production deal? Hey, maybe someone should check if Carrot-Top has learned IT stuff on the side??!! ;-D
Has anybody managed to download the zip? What’s in it?
The zip is out there. It’s just over 200MB of file names across two notepad docs. Looks like there’s a lot of information in there.
I read a rumor that Warners was next. Anyone heard anything on this?
This is nuts but expected in today’s society. I thought it looked like cellphone text that failed to auto correct…
Their demands include stop making movies with Adam Sandler, Cameron Diaz and Will Smith…oh, and fire Amy.
this!
Their ‘demands’ are horse pucky (if true), and then some. If they don’t like said people, then they don’t have to see the movies made by them.
“It’s all just floating around out there… all you have to do is know how to grab it.” – HEAT -
AT LAST!!! REVENGE for the NGE!!!
Well someone Is going to jail shortly… But they have a nice artistic sense
Probably the Michael Jackson Estate. Makes as much sense as the other reasons posted here.