Hackers appear to extort Sony Pictures through massive PC hostage crisis

Sony Pictures appears to be dealing with a major hack that renders the PCs of staff members worldwide unusable. The hackers require certain conditions to be met.

According to the Deadline site, these are Sony Pictures computers that have been hacked worldwide and are therefore unusable. “We are down, completely paralyzed,” a source from the site within Sony Pictures said. A spokesperson said the company is investigating an IT case. Every employee would have been advised to turn off the computer, turn off WiFi and stop using VPN, writes CSOOnline.

The Business2community site claims to have a screenshot of the image the computers show: a skeleton with the text ‘Hacked at #GOP’. In addition, many Twitter accounts associated with Sony Pictures movie releases show a similar image and text.

The group also says it has stolen secret information and will release it if certain requirements are not met. It is not known what those requirements are. There are also URLs with links to zip files called SPEDdata. On Reddit, a former Sony employee claims to have received a zip file that would be on every hacked PC of Sony Pictures employees. The file would contain email addresses, passwords, pdf, doc and excel files including financial details. In addition, the name is called Guardians of Peace, or GOP.