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Sony Pictures hacked: the full story

A successful attack on Sony Pictures' computer systems threw the entire studio into disarray in late November. The hijackers' identity and motivation remain unclear, though in the days following the attack, evidence has surfaced to suggest it originated in North Korea. Rather than attempting to steal money or otherwise profit from the information it obtained, this hack seems to be focused on making life difficult for Sony Pictures employees. They have been subjected to threats from the hacking group, which has posted much of the data it collected from the studio's servers to the web. Follow this storystream for the latest developments to the story.

  • Nick Statt

    Sep 3, 2015

    Nick Statt

    Sony Pictures reaches settlement with former employees in hack lawsuit

    Sony Pictures has reached a settlement with former employees in a lawsuit related to the devastating hack it suffered 10 months ago, a breach which saw large amounts of sensitive company information leaked online. The lawsuit, which is still pending class-action certification in a hearing set later this month, is a combination of seven different lawsuits brought by former employees whose social security numbers, medical records, and other sensitive personal information were part of the data dump.

    Details of the settlement were not disclosed. Sony and the plaintiffs have asked that the class-action certification be pushed back 45 days while both parties await the approval of the settlement. Deadline first reported news of the settlement earlier today.

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  • Ross Miller

    Jun 2, 2015

    Ross Miller

    An Oscar-nominated documentary team is working on a film about the Sony hacks

    Here we go. In the first of what's sure to be many, a documentary about the Sony hacks is currently in the works from Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, the team who made the 2013 Oscar-nominated (and Emmy Award-winning) doc The Square.

    According to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie is expected to explore alternative theories as to who actually hacked Sony, shut down their servers, and leaked massive troves of emails from high-ranking executives like former Sony Pictures chief Amy Pascal. The FBI and White House have named North Korea as the perpetrator, although many in the security community have questioned that conclusion and called for more data to be released.

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  • Russell Brandom

    Apr 16, 2015

    Russell Brandom

    Wikileaks has published the complete Sony leaks in a searchable database

    Today, Wikileaks published a database of all of the data leaked from Sony Pictures in last year's hack, comprising 173,132 emails and 30,287 separate documents. The documents contain private legal opinions as well as sensitive conversations between executives, many of which were the subject of reports in the wake of the hack. "This archive shows the inner workings of an influential multinational corporation," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a statement. "It is newsworthy and at the centre of a geo-political conflict. It belongs in the public domain. WikiLeaks will ensure it stays there."

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  • Lizzie Plaugic

    Feb 12, 2015

    Lizzie Plaugic

    Amy Pascal speaks about the Sony hacks, calls actors 'bottomless pits of need'

    Kevin Winter/Getty Images

    Amy Pascal spoke publicly yesterday for the first time since stepping down as the chief of Sony Pictures, Recode reports. At the Women in the World conference in San Francisco, Pascal talked openly, if vaguely, about the Sony hacks, pay inequality, and needy Hollywood stars.

    The conversation, moderated by former Newsweek editor Tina Brown, started off slowly as Pascal questioned the need for a public discussion. "Everyone knows everything about me," she said. "What am I doing here?"

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  • Sam Byford

    Feb 4, 2015

    Sam Byford

    Sony will spend $15 million to deal with cyberattack fallout

    Sony was meant to announce its third quarter earnings today, but since the catastrophic cyberattack directed at Sony Pictures took out much of its accounting equipment, the company is only able to issue approximate guidance for now. And there’s at least some good news: the company estimates it made a net profit of ¥89 billion ($756 million) between October and December, up 238 percent from a year earlier.

    Operating profit is forecast at ¥178.3 billion ($1.51 billion), and revenue is expected to have increased 6 percent year on year to ¥2.56 trillion ($21.7 billion). Sony has revised its forecast for the financial year ending in March; it still expects to make a net loss, but now estimates that it will be ¥170 billion ($1.44 billion) after previously predicting ¥230 billion.

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  • Sam Byford

    Jan 23, 2015

    Sam Byford

    Sony Pictures expects to have some critical systems back online in early February

    Sony has announced that it's applying for an extension of the deadline to submit its third-quarter securities report "due to the amount of destruction and disruption that occurred" following the massive cyberattack directed against its movie division. Sony Pictures shut down its network in response to the hack, but most of the financial systems and "many other critical information technology applications" won't be back online until early February. The Wall Street Journal reported at the end of December that the Sony Pictures network would be "fully operating again within eight weeks" if the company's systems stayed secure.

    As such, the third-quarter earnings report will miss its originally scheduled date of February 4th. Sony will still release guidance and hold conferences on that date, so we should get some idea of how it performed during the important holiday quarter. The company doesn't believe the hack will make much difference to the bottom line, however. "While Sony continues to evaluate the impact of the cyberattack on its financial results," it says in a statement, "it currently believes that such impact is not material."

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  • Russell Brandom

    Jan 20, 2015

    Russell Brandom

    New report claims zero-day attack on Sony Pictures

    The tools involved in the Sony Pictures attack may have been more sophisticated than we thought. Recode's Arik Hessedahl is reporting that the attackers employed a previously undisclosed vulnerability to break into the Sony Pictures system, according to "sources familiar with the Sony investigation." Also known as a zero-day vulnerability, undisclosed weaknesses are particularly valuable in the security world, and typically employed by nation-state attackers. It's unclear how central the exploit was to the attack or which system was found to be vulnerable. Much of the previously reported software involved in the attack had been re-used from earlier attacks in South Korea in 2013.

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  • Amar Toor

    Jan 19, 2015

    Amar Toor

    The NSA was tracking North Korea's hackers long before they attacked Sony Pictures

    Intelligence gathered by the National Security Agency on North Korea more than four years ago led the US government to blame Pyongyang for the recent attack on Sony Pictures, according to a report from The New York Times. The report, citing former US officials, computer experts, and documents leaked last week by Edward Snowden, says the NSA used malware to track North Korean hackers as part of a program launched in 2010. That allowed the government to blame North Korea with unusual speed and certainty following December's hack on Sony Pictures, but the report also sheds light on how Pyongyang's hackers were able to get away with it in the first place.

    US officials tell the Times that the operation against Sony began in September, when hackers gained access to the studio's network using spear phishing attacks. These involved planting malware through email links, but they evaded the NSA's radar because the hackers, unbeknownst to US officials, had stolen the credentials of a Sony administrator. The phishing campaign "didn't send off alarm bells," one person involved in the investigation tells the Times. They then spent two months roaming through Sony's computer systems before launching the attack in November.

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  • Chris Welch

    Jan 14, 2015

    Chris Welch

    The Interview is coming to Blu-ray and DVD on February 17th

    It was only a matter of weeks ago when Sony Pictures Entertainment sheepishly admitted it had no plans to release The Interview after suffering a massive data breach — reportedly at the hands of North Korea. It's pretty incredible how much has changed since then. We've seen the Seth Rogen / James Franco comedy make its way through a limited theatrical run, pushed out to every video-on-demand service known to man, and now we'll be getting a physical media release to close it all out. Today, Sony Pictures announced that The Interview will come to Blu-ray and DVD on February 17th. It's being packaged in a cheekily-named "Freedom Edition," which is pretty terrible. But hey, kudos to Sony if it wants to provoke and poke fun at the hackers that caused the studio so many headaches.

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  • Russell Brandom

    Jan 9, 2015

    Russell Brandom

    The NSA helped trace the Sony attacks back to North Korea

    Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

    The NSA played a large role in tracing the Sony hacks back to North Korea, according to recent statements by the NSA director. Speaking at a cybersecurity conference in Manhattan today, Admiral Michael Rogers confirmed that the NSA's signals intelligence had been employed as part of the search for the Sony hackers. "We partner with the Department of Homeland Security and FBI in various areas and this is one such area," Rogers told reporters. "We were asked to provide our technical expertise. We were asked to take a look at the malware. We were asked to take a look at not just the data that was being generated from Sony but also what data could we bring to the table?" FBI Director James Comey had given some details on the attribution process earlier in the week, but did not speak directly to the NSA's role in the process.

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  • Russell Brandom

    Jan 9, 2015

    Russell Brandom

    Congress will hold a public hearing on North Korea's hacking powers next week

    In the wake of the Sony Pictures hack, Washington is showing a new focus on the threat posed by North Korea. The House Foreign Affairs Committee has called for a public briefing on Tuesday that will examine the country's hacking capabilities, with testimony from the Departments of State, Treasury, and Homeland Security. The briefing will focus on steps the US is taking to curtail or protect against the country's apparent capabilities. "There can be no doubt that the Kim regime means America harm," Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) said in a statement, "and as we saw last month, Pyongyang can deliver on its threats."

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  • Russell Brandom

    Jan 6, 2015

    Russell Brandom

    The Interview made more than $30 million from online sales and rentals

    The Interview's haphazard release may have worked better than Sony planned. CNN's Brian Stelter is reporting that the film was rented or purchased 4.3 million times, adding up to roughly $31 million from online sales alone. The film also grossed roughly $5 million in theaters after its run was drastically scaled back in the face of terror threats. That adds up to an impressive total for a film that many thought might not be released at all.

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  • James Vincent

    Jan 4, 2015

    James Vincent

    North Korea issues angry response to US sanctions for Sony hack

    North Korea has accused the US of "groundlessly stirring up bad blood" towards the country after imposing sanctions in response to the alleged hack on Sony Pictures. A spokesperson for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry denied that the country had been involved in the cyberattack on the movie studio and said that Washington’s refusal to participate in a joint investigation to find the real culprits revealed its "guilty conscience."

    The US announced new economic sanctions against Pyongyang on Friday, targeting 10 individuals and three North Korean entities, including the country's primary intelligence agency. North Korea's response this Sunday said that the US was attempting to further isolate the country from the international community, and that the sanctions only strengthened its resolve to pursue its military-first policy.

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  • Chris Welch

    Jan 2, 2015

    Chris Welch

    US places sanctions on North Korea for hacking Sony

    Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

    In what's described as the "first" response to the cyberattack against Sony Pictures Entertainment, the Obama administration today announced new sanctions against North Korea. These sanctions are separate from those already imposed against Pyongyang over the country's nuclear program and come in response to "recent provocations," the US Treasury Department said in a press release. President Obama signed an executive order authorizing the sanctions earlier today.

    "This step reflects the ongoing commitment of the United States to hold North Korea accountable for its destabilizing, destructive and repressive actions, particularly its efforts to undermine US cyber-security and intimidate US businesses and artists exercising their right of freedom of speech," the Treasury said.

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  • Rich McCormick

    Jan 2, 2015

    Rich McCormick

    Sony is bringing The Interview to cable and satellite TV

    Marcus Ingram/Getty Images

    The Wall Street Journal reports that Sony Pictures has completed deals that will bring The Interview to cable and satellite packages in the US, including Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and DirectTV. The company says the movie, which sees James Franco and Seth Rogen visit North Korea to blow up Kim Jong-un's head, will be available to rent or buy on major pay-TV services over the next few days.

    Michael Lynton, CEO of Sony Pictures, reportedly stepped in to personally orchestrate the deal that will make the movie available on the small screen. The move will mean that the controversial film, the target of ire from the North Korean regime, can already be seen online, on subscription TV services, and in hundreds of independent theaters, little more than a week after its official release.

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  • Jacob Kastrenakes

    Dec 31, 2014

    Jacob Kastrenakes

    Sony execs used old BlackBerrys found in a basement after getting hacked

    With its computer systems crippled worldwide, Sony executives did what any of us would do: turn to simpler technologies to get them moving again. According to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, that tech included notepads, a manual paycheck machine, and also a stash of BlackBerrys found in Sony's basement. The BlackBerrys were handed out to Sony executives, who used them to start emailing once again thanks to the fact that the BlackBerrys were still set up to use their own server, rather than Sony's hacked one. They were also used to send out updates to the company's staff over text messages, which made their way down through the organization over a phone tree that was thrown together.

    Sony executives initially saw the hack as an annoyance that would slow down work and communications for a matter of days or weeks, according to the Times. It now has a much different outlook, expecting it to take an additional five to seven weeks before things return to normal — that's on top of the five weeks this has already been going on for. Restoring its tech systems are only the start of Sony's worries, too. Once it's operational again, it'll still have to be concerned about the rest of the data that the hackers claim to have stolen from it. The hacking group has been quiet since The Interview was released, but it likely has more data that it could attempt to threaten Sony with in the future. Next time, it'll probably think twice before giving in their demands.

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  • Dante D'Orazio

    Dec 28, 2014

    Dante D'Orazio

    The Interview makes over $15 million online, beating movie theaters

    Marcus Ingram/Getty Images

    The Interview did far better online than it did in its limited theatrical release. Sony Pictures has revealed that the film pulled in over $15 million over the holiday weekend from online purchases and rentals alone in the US and Canada. The studio has also announced that the film has already been rented or purchased over 2 million times.

    That handily beats the estimated $2.8 million the film earned over the same time period in theaters. However, only a relatively small sampling of independent theaters carried the film — had the major theater chains been willing to show The Interview, these numbers would likely be very different.

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  • Dante D'Orazio

    Dec 28, 2014

    Dante D'Orazio

    The Interview is now available on iTunes

    A person familiar with the matter tells The Verge that Apple's delay was due to a "logistical" issue. A number of factors likely contributed to this: Apple's offices are officially closed for the holidays, and the Christmas period brings particularly high demand to iTunes. Pushing The Interview live, especially as the exclusive distributor for the film, likely would have increased that strain. Sony Pictures also required a very quick turnaround: the company announced on December 17th that it had no plans to release the film, only to put the film online and in select theaters just a week later.

    Apple was one of the first outlets Sony Pictures sought out to distribute The Interview, according to a report last week from The New York Times, but the company apparently wasn't ready to release the film — "at least not on a speedy time table." Sony reportedly turned to the White House for help, but iTunes wasn't on board when the film went online last week. At the time, it wasn't clear if Apple didn't want to be involved with the controversial film or if some other issue got in the way of a partnership.

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  • Dante D'Orazio

    Dec 27, 2014

    Dante D'Orazio

    North Korea blames US for internet outage, calls Obama a reckless 'monkey'

    North Korea believes it is being punished for a crime it did not commit. KCNA, the North's state-run media outlet, has published an official statement from an unidentified spokesperson that accuses the US of shutting down the country's internet access earlier this week.

    "The United States, with its large physical size and oblivious to the shame of playing hide and seek as children with runny noses would, has begun disrupting the Internet operations of the main media outlets of our republic," reads the statement.

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  • Jacob Kastrenakes

    Dec 26, 2014

    Jacob Kastrenakes

    The Interview made over $1 million in theaters on Christmas

    The Interview managed to bring in over $1 million at the box office during its opening on Thursday, a figure that's being seen as respectable given the unusual situation surrounding its premiere, according to The Wrap. "Considering the incredibly challenging circumstances, we are extremely grateful to the people all over the country who came out to experience The Interview on the first day of its unconventional release," Rory Bruer, Sony's global distribution president, says in a statement. Sony says that The Interview opened in fewer than 10 percent of the theaters it was originally going to play in — just 331, according to Variety. Many theaters are said to have sold out.

    There's no word on how The Interview performed online, which would have be the most interesting statistic here. Since Wednesday, the film has been available to rent for $5.99 and to buy for $14.99. Given the publicity surrounding The Interview, Sony may actually see some nice returns from online distribution. It's unusual for a major studio film to simultaneously open on-demand and in theaters, which likely caught the attention of potential viewers. The fact that Google called out its distribution of The Interview on its home page certainly should have helped as well. That should all help boost The Interview's early numbers, though it may cut into long-term profits since people are able to watch and buy it at home immediately.

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  • James Vincent

    Dec 26, 2014

    James Vincent

    The Interview is YouTube's most popular video right now

    The Interview is top of YouTube's Popular Right Now chart after being released online on December 24th through four digital channels: Google Play, SeeTheInterview.com, Xbox Video, and YouTube Movies.

    From a nationwide US opening in 331 small and independent theaters, The Interview is thought to have taken $1 million in Christmas Day ticket stubs according to reports from both Variety and Deadline. The top earner in the same time period was the Angelina Jolie-directed war flick Unbroken (an estimated $15.6 million), followed by Disney's musical Into the Woods ($13.6 million), and Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies ($12.7 million).

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  • Micah Singleton

    Dec 24, 2014

    Micah Singleton

    Sony looked into selling its music publishing business because of growth concerns and streaming

    Sony's music publishing arm is the largest music catalog in the world, controlling the rights to over 2 million songs, including tracks by Beyoncé, Jay Z, Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan, and the majority of The Beatles' catalog. Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, Sony Corporation of America president Nicole Seligman, and SCA CFO Steve Kober were leading the sale, according to an email from Kober back in November.

    The sale was considered "top secret," with details only being discussed between a few high-level executives, according to the emails obtained by Bloomberg. Sony's Tokyo-based executives wrote about their concerns with the complex ownership behind Sony/ATV, and the continuing shift to streaming music. Sony/ATV artist Taylor Swift recently spoke out about the issues with streaming music, and it seems the company that owns her publishing agrees.

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  • Ross Miller

    Dec 24, 2014

    Ross Miller

    The Interview is now available online: $6 to rent, $15 to own

    Not one hour after we heard YouTube had "tentatively agreed" to offer The Interview as a rental, Sony Pictures has confirmed the film will be available online starting today at 1PM ET. It'll be offered through YouTube Movies, Google Play, Xbox Video, and a dedicated website SeeTheInterview.com.

    The film will cost $5.99 to rent and $14.99 to own an HD copy. Notably absent from the list: Apple's iTunes, which reportedly said no despite White House involvement, Amazon, and Sony's own PlayStation Network.

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  • Dec 24, 2014

    Ross Miller and Dante D'Orazio

    Sony is now offering The Interview online via YouTube, Xbox Video, and Google Play (update)

    Update: It's official — Sony will release The Interview online at 1PM ET today through YouTube, Xbox Video, and others. It'll be $5.99 to rent and $14.99 to own.

    Not only will The Interview be available in select theaters this Christmas, it'll also be available for everyone online. First reported by CNN's Brian Stelter and now corroborated by multiple outlets, YouTube has "tentatively agreed" to make it available as a rental. Sony is additionally in talks with other streaming outlets, so it wouldn't be exclusive (according to Recode, that list includes Google Play store and Sony's own website).

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