Sony Pictures Entertainment is still dealing with the effects of cyber attacks that hit their Culver City studio, according to Reuters.
On Nov. 24, hackers calling themselves Guardian of Peace commandeered the studio computers, basically taking them out of business. So the studio hired the Mandiant forensics unit of an outfit called FireEye, to restore service—hopefully by Monday morning.
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Over the weekend, emails sent to studio addresses were bouncing back with the message that the system was “currently experiencing a disruption.”
At least five of the studio’s releases, including Brad Pitt’s war movie Fury and the upcoming musical Annie, scheduled to open Dec. 19, have been pirated and offered on file-sharing sites. According to the website Torrentfreak, these copies, ripped from studio DVDs, were being copied at an insane rate.
One of them, a drama about drug addiction called To Write Love on Her Arms, is not scheduled for release until 2015.
During the initial attack on Monday, the hackers left a message on studio computers threatening to release “your secrets and top secrets.” The attack led to speculation that the hackers were North Korean operatives retaliating for Sony’s upcoming comedy, The Interview, starring James Franco and Seth Rogen, which ridicules North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un.
The Interview is scheduled to open Christmas Day and North Korea is furious. On Friday, Uriminzokkiri, a website belonging by the North Korean government, called The Interview an “evil act of provocation” that deserved “stern punishment.”
The Hollywood reported said Rogen joked in a tweet on Wednesday: “People don’t usually want to kill me for any of my movies until after they’ve paid 12 bucks for it. Hiyooooo!!”
