Hackers have struck again at Sony Pictures Entertainment, threatening employees of the studio in a new email obtained by Variety.
The group taking credit for the hack, which calls itself “Guardians of Peace” and first hacked Sony on Nov. 24, said it planned to eradicate all of Sony Pictures Entertainment. The author of the email wrote in English and made only a single demand.
“Please sign your name to object the false (sic) of the company at the email address below if you don’t want to suffer damage. If you don’t, not only you but your family will be in danger.”
Employees were told to turn off their handheld devices after receiving the message, according to insiders at Sony.
“We are aware of the situation and are working with law enforcement,” a spokesman said in a statement.
On Thursday, North Korea denied its involvement in the ongoing data breach after media outlets said the attack was a response to Sony’s new movie “The Interview,” in which Seth Rogen and James Franco attempt to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
“Linking the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official name of North Korea) to the Sony hacking is another fabrication targeting the country,” an unidentified North Korean diplomat told Voice of America on Thursday. “My country publicly declared that it would follow international norms banning hacking and piracy.”
Over the past two weeks, Sony Pictures Entertainment has been plagued by headaches stemming from the massive security breach. Personal information of its 3,803 employees has leaked online along with a spreadsheet purportedly listing salaries of top studio executives, and five of the studio’s films, including “Annie” and “Still Alice,” turned up on the Internet, where they have been widely pirated.
The security breach dates back to Nov. 24, when Sony Pictures employees logging on to the company’s network were greeted with an image of a skeleton and a message that said, “Hacked by #GOP.”
Sony has been working with law enforcement officials, including the FBI, to investigate the cause of the data breach and has hired security firm FireEye and its Mandiant unit to look into the incident.
The FBI released a statement following Friday’s email: “The FBI is aware of threatening emails that have been received by some employees at Sony Pictures Entertainment. We continue to investigate this matter in order to identify the person or group responsible for the recent attack on the Sony Pictures network. Recent events underscore the persistence and maliciousness of harmful cyber criminals, and the FBI will continue to identify and apprehend those who pose a threat in cyberspace.”
Read the “Guardians of Peace” email in full:
I am the head of GOP who made you worry.
Removing Sony Pictures on earth is a very tiny work for our group which is a worldwide organization. And what we have done so far is only a small part of our further plan. It’s your false if you think this crisis will be over after some time. All hope will leave you and Sony Pictures will collapse. This situation is only due to Sony Pictures. Sony Pictures is responsible for whatever the result is. Sony Pictures clings to what is good to nobody from the beginning. It’s silly to expect in Sony Pictures to take off us. Sony Pictures makes only useless efforts. One beside you can be our member.
Many things beyond imagination will happen at many places of the world. Our agents find themselves act in necessary places. Please sign your name to object the false of the company at the email address below if you don’t want to suffer damage. If you don’t, not only you but your family will be in danger.
Nobody can prevent us, but the only way is to follow our demand. If you want to prevent us, make your company behave wisely.
Ooo… A spooky annonymous death threat. So scarry I will start to carry three magazines, rather than the usual two.
Boy, somebody sure don’t like Sony. LOL
That’s it!! I’m getting rid of my Walkman.
Sony hacked? :( Too bad, so sad… Oh well, “It’s a hard knock life…” they say.
I think they are the same ones behind the Nigerian email scams.
Is there any evidence that the e-mail is actually originating from GoP, and not some other entity?
Sony will collapse and come back as RKO. Royal Korean Oligarchy
Oh no! If these hacks continue then more movie plots will be revealed before we have a chance to see them … Well, see them again that is since the last movie that came out with the same plot. This group is a joke and I am purposely buying Sony now just to irritate them.
LOL! There’s no way N Korea is responsible for this. It’s some teenage dweebe sitting in his mom’s basement. LOL! Good God!
Funny, that dweebe seems to be able to control the world more than you ever have. Maybe you should be embarrassed.
time somebody exposed the despicable hollywood propagandists of the genocidal American regime that , under mass murderers like obama, bush, clintons, is invading & occupying countries, funding coups, drone killing children, torturing the unarmed, burning the unborn, spying on all, etc., etc., in order to loot resources to maintain its welfare junkie citizens. eventually every last drop of blood and wealth usa and its people leeched from others will be paid back in full with interest by force.
The NSA will be visiting you shortly.
Wonder If It Affects Past employees Wow… Now I’m Wondering
Yes. It most certainly does. I’m one of them (last worked 2009). :-(
Blowback Sony Pictures Produced Propaganda for corporate
government
to sell the official September 2001 narrative for thirteen years
This is like a deceleration of war! Imagine this situation in cold war. IMPOSSIBLE!!!
Dear Mr Obama can you please do something… Put the best people in your team together and start to “hunt” and “exterminate” this hackers/ government/ everybody involved in this. Use drones, military and the full power of our technology to bring them down to justice. Is time…
This email reads like a Seth Rogen and James Franco movie.
All your base are belong to us
my beeber is set on stunne
Best comedy of the year. Did Mel Brooks write this?
you sound just like a cheese-ball
get your head out of yourass
LMAO, awesome. A bunch of useless, leftist, Hollywood, cheeseballs threatened by a bunch of Marxist monkeys from China and NoKor.
It’s a win-win!!
Even the most useless Sony employee is more useful than a comment like that.
“Release of “The Interview,” will cause bad things for USA”
Somebody better cut the cable and connections now for North Korea and others like them.
Before it’s too late!!!!!
They will destroy what little integrity is left of the internet.
“Release of “The Interview,” will cause bad things for USA”
Lol, bring it. Glock, Mossberg and Smith & Wesson all await your fury.
You do realize that hackers can destroy your life without even being in the same country right? Ask someone who’s been a target and they’ll tell you, unless you live completely off the grid you are vulnerable. Guns won’t help you against an enemy you’ll never see.
Come into the light hackers – you’re a bunch of pussies.
I hope someone steals my identity, and the IRS finds them before they find me.
“Guardians of Peace”.
More like “Guardians of Our Own Piece of the Action at the Expense of Everyone Else”.
In other words, just your everyday vandals, thieves and thugs.
Actually, they’re the kind that Hollywood frequently eats up with a spoon and turns into movie heroes……those adorable brash youngsters, taking down The Man, yay.
Yuck.
I really really like these guys. Whatever they are doing, keep doing it. Hollywood needs to be rebuilt by film and TV artists, and do away with these Obama sychophants.
#GOP….. You are awesome! Keep up the good work! We the people of middle America fully support your endeavors.
If only you could be so lucky, Joe, as to have all your personal information spewed all over the internet. You realize you’re endorsing terrorists, right?
Hackers are now terrorists? C’mon…they’re criminals. Get out of LALA land
Sony Pictures security is so WEAK that even North Korea can penetrate it. LOL! Hey sony, may want to hire some security professionals. LOL! in fact LMAO!
nobody cares morons
Question: Which of the following took place on November 24, 2014: a) SONY Hacking; b) Ferguson Grand Jury Decision Announcement; c) Obama fires the Secretary of Defense; Answer: ALL of the Above! Someone’s working real hard to distract the populace, perhaps?
word is they meant to target the health insurance industry
Now THAT’S something I can get behind! “Burn the b*tch down.”
this is because of the film that Sony pics is releasing about North Korea. No sense of humor in Korea.
Typical ignoramusus! You MUST think like me or you will die! Next we likely will see their post related to some religion!
This is a systems/management problem. I hope they find the best info. personnel(ccnp, etc) to patch their rapidly sinking ship. ASAP! .
Going to need ccie for this
Sony this is a free country here. Keep up the fight. Seth and james no one will use your sssns. You guys are right and North Korea is evil. That about it. Keep rocking! And keep making R rated movies as you guys are all we have anymore.
If this is indeed coming from a foreign nation, it should be looked at as nothing less than an attack on our citizens on US soil.
“The GOP group”?? Where do you GET this stuff from>>
The group refers to itself as “Guardians of Peace”, GOP for short (its own abbreviation) They are most likely foreign judging from the grammar in their emails and has nothing to do with the Republican Party.
Honey, do you even know how a routing protocol functions? Go back to thumbing through your hollywood rag sheets.
honestly the whole thing is really messed up. these supposed “guardians of peace” are not only hurting the company, which is whatever, but its really hurting the PEOPLE — the little people — that work there or used to, and who need to support themselves and their families. Stealing their personal information and making it public knowledge for any criminal to have, revealing very private information and embarrassing these PEOPLE. whatever you think of SONY (and i personally am not a big fan of management there) the people and teams there work hard and don’t deserve this. i know it is entertaining fodder for the rest of us but these are people’s lives. its not like this information is in ANY WAY for the betterment of the nation or a matter of national security or whatever. it’s really terrible.
Wait a minute THESE people are just doing the same as liberal/Marxists with the ends justify the means way of doing business.
The little people? These are union workers who would flatten your tires in a New York minute if you didn’t give them a yearly raise or if you don’t join their gangsta unions.
I actually just passed a movie shoot, and I took notice of the cast/crew parking lot. All the cars were porsches, BMWs, and Benzs.
Little people my butt!
The little people are the ones who lack compassion or empathy for others, like you “JoeTheFilmmaker.” You have no idea what you are talking about. Driving by one movie shoot and deciding that one group is representative of the whole is like looking outside your window and saying “It’s sunny here, so it must be sunny in the whole country.”
So much for the whole hack being a publicity stunt for “The Interview”…
Bring it on troglodyte midgets … this is the USA, where we were born free and live free, so if you think you can project your moronic Marxist dictatorship of tyranny and small-minded school-yard bully intimidation into our homes, think again. We are 350 armed free-people – you want to try sending your ‘agents’ from a puny nation with a _total_ population of 24.9million, then go ahead: Expect your ‘agents’ back in little plastic bags marked “Return to sender, Biowaste non-viewable” if you’re stupid enough to try harming us.
Oh for Chrikey’s sake, the whole WERE #1, USA USA cr p is so over. Really. You are not as free as you claim. We are not even #1 anymore. China took over our economic size as was announced just yesterday. The only jobs we can create are the ones delegated behind cash registers for minimum wage or a few dimes more. We are not even 350 million people and not even half of those are even armed. Most Americans would be shooting each other and robbing each other blind without electricity to drive the Hollywood Cr p machine for a week and the Govt “supplement” checks were to dry up. Hell, we have more people milking the minority who actually pay taxes than we even have armed.
Im in no way defending North Korea, but dude, really, the whole Ultra Nationalist Patriotism is played out. Face reality. Stick a fork in it.
FOR GREAT JUSTICE
Do you know why right? thanks to liberalism and they wanting to overtax and destroy businesses. Liberals are destroying the country wake up. Liberalism is a disease,a cancer that must be destroyed.
I don’t get it. What did Sony do? They offer no explanation. Were they angry about the plot of Spider-Man 2 or something?
It’s about the new film about Korea , comedy. See trailer. “The interview” with Seth Rogan
Only a coward hides behind anonymity while destroying and tormenting innocent people.
True. But idiots, below par info. management, would be a magnet for criminals stealing intangible assets. I hate seeing Sony or any studio losing assets from criminal activity. Better yet, Sony needs to be on the offense and FIND THE CRIMINALS WHO STOLE information and assets..
“All hope will leave you”
All your base are belong to us.
Ooooh! Textin tuff guy! Here’s a hint: if someone truly wants to harm you, they won’t advertise it.
Fake story? This is a sick way to promote a crappy film.
Nope its real! Sony,s in deep DooDoo.
This is all because of that Seth Rogan film….. that little short asshat is upset that the film makes him look like an idiot. He is nothing more than a little brat that needs his ass kicked.
Wait now, are we talking about Seth Rogan here?
All of your base are belong to us!
Reblogged this on LouisianaWorld.Net | BattleOfOurTimes.Com.
All of this over a company that makes movies and TV? It’s obviously coming from North Korea because no one else would be so misled or isolated to think Sony Pictures does anything substantial enough to warrant such an attack. They make entertainment. And it’s not going to change anything other than their security efforts moving forward.
No-one else would have such atrocious grammar or pitiful grasp of the English Language, either!
Clearly, English is not this Sicko’s first language.
Yeah Sony!
This is an auto translation of an original doc in a foreigh language (Korean?) which is why “fault” appears as “false” and there are so many other gramatical and other gaffs. A decent forensic agent should get to the national source quite easily. Tracing the email is another matter as it probably pings and pongs across many servers both here and abroad.
..seriously folks, it sounded much more threatening in Korean.