History and stories
The Sony Pictures hack: when attackers set out to destroy
Staff at Sony Pictures arrived to find a red skull on their screens. The company would be running on paper for weeks.
1 min readStory
The short version
In November 2014, attackers leaked a film studio's emails and unreleased movies, then erased its computers.
The story
On November 24, 2014, employees at Sony Pictures Entertainment found their computers showing a red skull and a message from a group calling itself “Guardians of Peace.” The attackers had already copied huge amounts of data out of the company.
They leaked it online over the following weeks: private emails between executives, salaries, employees’ personal details and medical information, scripts, and copies of films that had not yet been released. Then they used malware to wipe the company’s computers. Staff went back to fax machines, paper and phone calls.
The group demanded that Sony cancel the release of The Interview, a comedy about North Korea’s leader, and threatened cinemas that showed it. Major cinema chains dropped the film, and Sony released it online instead. The US government said North Korea was responsible; North Korea denied it.
Why it mattered
The attack was built to embarrass and destroy, and it showed how much damage leaked email alone could do. Conversations people never expected to be public made headlines for months.
The lesson today
Two lessons apply to any business. Have a plan for working when computers are gone, with backups that attackers cannot erase. And remember that anything written in email could one day be read by others.
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