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The huge digital attack on Sony Corp’s studio was without a match, expert investigators brought in by the organization concluded. Same source said the breach was orchestrated by a very well organized cluster.
FireEye Inc’s Mandiant forensics unit’s chief, Kevin Mandia sent an email with this remarks to Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO, Michael Lynton.
The email arrived 48 hours after Guardians of Peace- the cyber-terrorism gang behind the story- managed to take the last step in its terrorist campaign. This was, in fact, a misspelled text message intimidating Sony Pictures staff.
These first observations related to the case don’t really give insight into what most individuals are wondering. More exactly, who led the attack and how much damage did it bring to Sony’s system.
Considered the most severe digital assault until now against a U.S. based organization, the campaign killed a large part of the company’s network using viruses that erase PC drives and as a result blocks them. The damage is quite serious since fixing drives is costly, involving manual replaces or redesigns.
North Korea is, so far, the chief suspect according to sources quoted by Reuters. However, allegations were rejected by the North Korean ambassador.
Staff members at Sony received from Lynton a message he got from Mandia, whose firm has tested some of the greatest digital assaults to date.
The message contained information about hackers’ intentions. Apparently, the malware was created to discharge private data to the general public while destroying the property. Also, Mandia concluded that the attack was matchless and for that reason no company, including the targeted one could have contained it.
Joshua Campbell from FBI disclosed that his agency agreed with Madiant’s opinion that the assault passed without being recognized by normal antivirus programs. The official did not give extra details about FBI’s own inquiry into the matter.
PacketNinjas, small cybersecurity enterprise’s CEO, Daniel Clemens held that even if the digital assault was exceptional SPE had numerous tools at hand which could have guarded against the hacking. Likewise, he said that the government might discover that the company did not have all vital protection setups to fight off and discover cyber aggressors, were it to test the breach.
The hackers activity debuted on November 24 and managed to compromise SPE’s private information by making the company workers’ wages as well as social security numbers public.
Guardians of Peace additionally released a few Sony movies on the Internet, including the contemporary redo of Annie, movie that is coming out in theaters in a couple of weeks.
