Criminals threaten Sony employees and their families in threatening email
Sony employees Friday received threatening emails from criminals who are said to be guilty of the extensive hack that recently hit the company. In the emails, the malicious parties write that not only the employees, but also their families are in danger.
The criminals warn that they will harm the employees and their families if they do not meet the conditions, but it is not known what those are. “What we’ve done is only a small part of our further plan,” they threaten in the email, which is written in broken English and also contains spelling mistakes. The criminals call themselves ‘Guardians of Peace’.
Sony takes the threat seriously and says it will cooperate with the investigative services to punish the perpetrators, writes The New York Times. In addition, the FBI reports in a statement that the service is aware of the mail. According to the service, recent events at Sony show that cyber criminals can cause a lot of damage.
The extensive hack at Sony came to light last week. When it turned out that systems from Sony Pictures, a branch of Sony that makes films and TV series, would have been hacked. Desktops of employees worldwide would have become unusable as a result. The attackers may have received help from within and only posted a torrent on the internet that allegedly contained company documents. On Friday, another torrent appeared online with, among other things, salary and insurance information of Sony employees.
Sony reported working with the well-known American security company FireEye to investigate the crack. This happened after five new Sony movies, still in theaters, appeared on the internet. The films surfaced online after the hack, but it is not yet clear whether the two cases are related.
According to The New York Times, Sony and the FBI do not yet know who is behind the attack. The newspaper relies on sources within the investigation, who do not want to make their identities public. Meanwhile, there are various theories about who is behind the hack. One is that North Korea is said to be behind the attack over the Sony film The Interview, a comedy that targets Kim Jong-un’s regime. North Korea says it sees the film as an ‘act of war’.