Operations are apparently slowly resuming at Sony Pictures today after a group of hackers called the Guardians of Peace, or #GOP, shut down the company last week. Over the weekend, while the company’s networks and email systems were paralyzed, the group uploaded five new and upcoming Sony films onto file-sharing sites, followed by a leak of top executives’ alleged salaries last night.
Now the FBI is getting involved, joining private cybersecurity firms and other law enforcement to find out who would dare to cross both the producers of Annie and whatever power metal band from whom they stole that totally extreme red skeleton design. Sony’s best guess at the moment is North Korea, which the studio claims hacked its computers in retaliation for making The Interview in a scenario that sounds like marketers making cyber-lemonade but might have some sort of basis in reality. (Perhaps tellingly, The Interview was not among the movies stolen from Sony’s servers—the seemingly random list includes Fury, Annie, Mr. Turner, Still Alice, and To Write Love On Her Arms.)
North Korea is playing along, at any rate, as an official refused to respond to a BBC reporter’s questions about the incident last night. The spokesman for North Korea’s United Nations delegation neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the hacking, saying, “The hostile forces are relating everything to the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea). I kindly advise you to just wait and see,” presumably adding that he doesn’t get why people like Seth Rogen so much anyway.
UPDATE: This afternoon the #GOP leaks took a more sinister turn as the group released the private information of 3,803 Sony employees, including social security numbers, birth dates, and other information useful in identity theft, online. Employee performance reviews, salary comparisons, and a list of people recently fired or laid off from the company were also leaked.