It seems Sony Pictures is under attack — and the attack comes with the banner ‘hacked by #GOP.’ Who is #GOP, and what have they got against Sony? It’s not clear yet, but it seems Michael Lynton may be a big part of it.
According to a Reddit poster (name withheld per request), who says he is also an ex-employee of Sony Pictures, a friend who still works there has informed him that every computer in the New York office, and, reportedly, every Sony Pictures office across the nation, bears this image:
The text (errors and odd capitalization intact) reads as below.
Hacked By #GOP
Warning:
We’ve already wasned you, and this is just a beggining.
We continue till our request be met.
We’ve obtained all your Internal data, Including your secrets and top secrets.
If you don’t obey us, we’ll release data shown below to the world.
Determine what will you do till November the 24th, 11:00 PM (GMT).
It’s followed by several zip files, that apparently contain the information the hackers believe Sony doesn’t want the world to see.
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However, it isn’t just the Sony Pictures offices bearing the signs of attack. Dozens of Twitter feeds connected to movies are showing a similar image, sans text. Others lack the image, but all bear the legend ‘Hacked By #GOP.’
It’s clear that access has already been regained to some Twitter feeds, such as that of Soul Surfer. Though at 1:30pm Eastern it looked like the others, the post (below) had been deleted by 1:45pm. Accounts initially affected included Stomp The Yard, Columbia Classics, Sony Stock Footage, My Daily Clip, Beastly Movie, and dozens of others.
Who is #GOP and what exactly are they asking of Sony Pictures? It isn’t clear, but according to the information contained in the first image, if the company doesn’t figure it out and respond in some way by late this evening, the details of ‘hacked by #GOP’ may become very public after all.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Steph Bazzle. Find out how you can become a part of Business 2 Community.
Sister works for Sony. This is definitely real.
Blur out the damn URLs!
Those URLs are just to download the list of items the hacker claim to have. it is just two text files and a readme.
The URLs apparently all lead to a text file that lists the dump of files they potentially copied from Sony’s server. There is no actual data from those files contained in the list – it’s basically just an enumeration of the threat.
What for? They’re all over the place. Calm the heck down.
GoOd JoB #GOP. TaKe DoWn ThE ScUm. YoU NeEd To TaKe DoWn MoRe. KeEp It Up.
ANUBUS.
Are you a 13 year old hAx0r?
Wow, I thought that sort of typing died out long ago. Stop with that noise.
i wil screenshot this comment and report yu and get you questioned by police to see if your part of this and then youll get arrested so umm haha your wasted lol have a nice prison life
R U TEH INTERNET POLICE?!?
Nothing to blur out… the URLs just go to their ransom message / list of files they “claim” to have obtained… nothing sensitive other than file names.
Guardians of Peace
good job #gop
but what’s with the other old boy media bitches?
they ALL had to go to hell too!!!!
Sounds like karma to me. As some may remember, Sony made and distributed one of the very first rootkit via their music CDs (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal).
Its been 24 hours, I wonder if they are still down…
Uhh, the spelling in the on-screen message is perfect, but the choice of words is a bit odd. Turn off your silly OCR and look with eyes!!!!
lol
Maybe the time all shit for free in play store :o
Sony will fall in a shadow of disgrace.
well.. just to make sure, i guess these links are FAKE because i typed one of the links word for word and looked it up and the screen went blank soo im not too sure and why the heck would america put this on the news someone could hack them agian and look at the private info like what the heck!!
Once the attack was publicly announced, GOP released two lists, reporting several documents, including password files, private key files; source code files (CPP), financial data, PII, inventory lists for hardware and other assets, network maps and outlines, production outlines and schedules.