Sony Pictures Hacked, Network Seized by Hackers

Sony Pictures Entertainment is still dealing with an apparent hack that hit the company early Monday, taking over their entire network broadcasting a single image on the company’s computers.

According to various reports, systems ranging from New York to all around the world awoke, frozen, with a bizarre image displayed on their screens. An odd image of a skeleton with a number of web addresses appearing with the following message:

“Hacked By #GOP Warning: We’ve already warned you, and this is just a beginning. We continue till our request be met. We’ve obtained all your internal data, including your secrets and top secrets. If you don’t obey us, we’ll release data shown below to the world. Determine what will you do till November the 24th, 11:00 PM (GMT). Data Link:[redacted]”

Hackers identified themselves as #GOP (Guardians of Peace), claiming they took over Sony Pictures broadcasting the message.

While information regarding the compromise of the systems remains scarce, the compromised systems appeared to only affect the SPE division of Sony. Reports surfaced that attackers compromised an unknown amount of machines inside the company’s internal networks. Hackers are said to have compromised SPE secrets and have begun leaking the documents online.

Reports claim hackers also gained access to Twitter accounts associated with movies Soul Surfer, Stomp The Yard, and Starship Troopers. The hacked Twitter accounts were also broadcasted pictures reading “Hacked by #GOP,” the company has once again gained access to the accounts.

An employee within Sony who wished to remain Anonymous told The Next Web the deface image was indeed real, confirming “a single server was compromised and the attack was spread from there.”

While Sony Pictures was hacked, attackers leaked a large ZIP file containing Sony Pictures documents pertaining to financial records, passwords, private keys and access to Sony servers. To confirm how recent the attack was, hackers leaked the 10 most recent passwords used throughout the company’s systems.

The warning from the GOP hackers requests their “demands” be met or Sony will continue to endure attacks and have their top trade secrets leaked online. The message read that the company must comply with demands by November 24th 11:00PM GMT or their files will be publicly leaked at their listed URL’s.

While the motives of the attack remain unknown, GOP claimed this was only the beginning and their team will continue attacks til their demands are met, threatening to leak top secret documents.

Sony employees have been required by network administrators to turn off their machines and disable WiFi on their phones and other electronic devices til the network is cleaned or the company learns what happened. Sony has released no official statements, stating the investigation is “an IT matter.”