It’s Official: Sony Scraps ‘The Interview’ (the most effective modern day "Hack"; with many possible implications)

[TargeT]

Sony Hackers Have Over 100 Terabytes Of Documents. Only Released 200 Gigabytes So Far

The "hackers" are now threatening to "blow up" theaters if the film is released... Sony has capitulated.


This is not only one of the biggest publicly released "hacks", but now also involves violence that seemingly points directly to North Korea as the perpetrator.

North Korea Behind Sony Hack: U.S. Officials
U.S. officials believe the North Korean government was behind the computer hacking attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, a massive security breach that embarrassed several executives and led to the cancellation of the planned Dec. 25 release of "The Interview."

The officials told NBC News the hacking attack originated outside North Korea, but they believe the individuals behind it were acting on orders from the North Koreans.

"We have found linkage to the North Korean government," according to a U.S. government source.

The officials offered no further details. "The Interview" is a comedy starring Seth Rogen and James Franco that depicts a fictional assassination attempt on North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

Sony on Wednesday dropped its plans to release the movie on Christmas Day after some of the country's largest theater chains said they were holding back or dropping the movie following threats of violence made by the same group that claimed it had hacked Sony, Guardians for Peace.

"Sony Pictures has been the victim of an unprecedented criminal assault against our employees, our customers, and our business," Sony said in a statement Wednesday, saying that it reached the decision after the top cinema chains pulled out. Regal, Cinemark, Carmike and Cineplex were among the chains that said it would not show the film on the planned Dec. 25 release, citing security concerns.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/no...icials-n270451


This is, at this point, basically the cyber equivalent of an attack on our soil followed by threats of bombings by a heavily suspected nation state.

the way this situation is developing is very interesting, a lot of media coverage perhaps feeling out the reaction (which there doesn't seem to be much of one) and now the movie release is being canceled. With the entertainment industry being doggedly attacked like it is I can't wonder if public out cry is not far behind..

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by TargeT (here)
This is not only one of the biggest publicly released "hacks", but now also involves violence that seemingly points directly to North Korea as the perpetrator.

Given the level of integrity usually displayed by our wonderful leaders ... I conclude that any one of 195 nations in the world might have been the source of these attacks (there are 196 nations total.)

Of course, on the basis of other common patterns, some of these 195 suspects are more suspect than others.

[TargeT]

Posted by Paul (here)

Posted by TargeT (here)
This is not only one of the biggest publicly released "hacks", but now also involves violence that seemingly points directly to North Korea as the perpetrator.

Given the level of integrity usually displayed by our wonderful leaders ... I conclude that any one of 195 nations in the world might have been the source of these attacks (there are 196 nations total.)

Of course, on the basis of other common patterns, some of these 195 suspects are more suspect than others.

you can narrow the list down quite a bit more with this handy tool:

http://map.ipviking.com/

Yes, those are all live attacks, yes this is "real", there are IDS (Intrusion detection systems) installed at the major hubs around the world as a part of the Norse Viking project. (Of course they sell the specific detailed data)

you can see the attack destination countries and target countries, the US generally is #1 or #2 of BOTH categories; however it is rarely from military/government IP spaces (not that that means anything..).

[Rocky_Shorz]

Kansas is getting nailed from every direction since the Representative sellout tossed too big to fail banks on the welfare recipient list...

Koch headquarters and Citigroup...

I thought GoP loved Koch

Update - target is in St Louis, not Kansas

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by TargeT (here)
you can see the attack destination countries and target countries, the US generally is #1 or #2 of BOTH categories; however it is rarely from military/government IP spaces (not that that means anything..).

The geographic location associated with an IP address might not be a reliable indicator of who is behind it ... it's too easy to rent computers, over the web, wherever you want.

Interesting map . Since that Norse map is based on their honeypot network, I suppose it would only show attacks directed at regions or countries that did have participating nodes in the Norse honeypot network (which seems to be just the US and Russia, right now, as I type this.)

The IP geolocation might give us a clue as to who "they" want to blame however. For example, an unusually high percentage of the IP addresses that I see in our Avalon server's blocked IP logs (for dubious activity) are from the Ukraine. From which, I suspect that someone would like to blame the Ukraine for a hack attack at some point ... just a guess.

Right now, for the last 100 days, 6 of the top 10 most commonly seen IP geolocations in Avalon blocked IP logs are from the Ukraine, 1 from Texas, 2 from China and 1 from Russia. I like to tease Ilie that Texas is beating out Romania on this stat <grin>.

At times in the past, Kansas City, Kansas, USA was leading our Avalon "bad IP" charts, thanks to a particular vendor of cheap web servers there that apparently was easy to deal with over the web.

[ghostrider]

computer hacking is way beyond my level , is it possible a double agent or agents broke into the system and made it look like North Korea did the dirty deeds ???

[Calz]

Posted by ghostrider (here)

is it possible a double agent or agents broke into the system and made it look like North Korea did the dirty deeds ???

... or with the insane level of nonsense and propaganda being spewed from western MSM simply a flat out lie ... business as usual ...

[Craig]

100 terabytes? What download speeds have they got? That would be years for me oh and the Isp fees

[Rocky_Shorz]

it was real, lasted for days, they had everything down, not even email in or out, hit at main hub right to the core system and memory, shredded to the point of full restore...

the middle east is getting down to setting up a nation, now the far east needs to start, and the only holdout is north korea...

is Ben right Korpan, or was it Japorea is being created, one is being rattled the other brought forward as a terrorist of Hollywood? Jew haters, guess we should bomb em if they don't agree...

[seehas]

Posted by Craig (here)
100 terabytes? What download speeds have they got? That would be years for me oh and the Isp fees

Bandwith today is not a big deal anymore the machines hacker groups use are mostly exploited dedicated servers they sit directly behind a gigbitbackbone and the sony servers arent in lack of bandwith either.

Its not home pcs that transfer this data collect it on servers first then share it via torrent or what ever.

I love when the media talks about these so called hacking countrys in the 90s it was popular to scan russian ipsegments and exploit machines to use them as proxy because it was easy and there was a ton of insecure servers, hackers allways use several proxys so its impossible to easy determine where they come from simply an ip adress doesnt say anything.

[Anchor]

Not a company I would want to be the CSO of right now.... every single computer in Sony Pictures America was hacked, rendered useless and requiring a full rebuild. Pretty much ALL the data from the servers was stolen, and ALL the email.... A CSO's worst nightmare.

I recall around 2006 when Sony deployed a rootkit on a music CD once that was to infect peoples computers in order to prevent people ripping music CD's. They managed to infect a lot of customers PC's until Mark Russinovich discovered it and they had to eat crow and produce a toolkit for people to disinfect their computers. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BM...ootkit_scandal ]. The first toolkit they provided didnt do the job properly and eventually they had to release a proper toolkit that completely removed it - but even in doing this they required you give an email and added that to a marketing list.

What comes around goes around.

http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security...curity-n269196

"Forget juicy Hollywood gossip columns -- nothing could embarrass Sony Pictures executives like the company's recent hack, which has yielded reports of everything from racially offensive jibes to salary numbers.

For Sony, it's a public relations nightmare, and if the company blushes enough, the hack could push other companies to finally make upgrades to their own security.

"The size and scope of this compromise moves security concerns from the backroom to the boardroom," Craig Williams, security outreach manager at Cisco Talos, told NBC News. "If a CEO didn't understand why access control and encryption were important before, they do now."


For the rank-and-file employees who work at Sony Pictures and the many others who worked there at some point, beefed up security may come as too little, too late. Among the documents are email addresses, Social Security numbers, birth dates, and other personal information for thousands of employees and contractors, according to reports. Early this week, two separate pairs of former employees filed lawsuits saying Sony did not do enough to protect workers' personal information from hackers, the Associated Press reported."

[giovonni]

hmm ...



Via LAWeekly...

Pulling The Interview Is the End of Free Speech in Hollywood

[Sierra]

Well, Sony should hack themselves and put "The Interview" out there, worldwide, for free lol.

[Calz]

Perhaps not the "end" rather a recalibration of measuring the possible consequences???

[DNA]

I wonder if sony is more concerned with further information being released via the hack than an actual bombing.

I'm thinking mk ultra mind controlled actors and state sponsored film making getting out would cause them to squirm.

[Calz]

Seems it has been pulled ...

Not sure what to make of that ...

[SilentFeathers]

In my opinion this whole story is so bizarre it almost seems like some kind of false flag joke being made up by a few morons and being taken over and escalated by some other morons to punish Sony for some reason.....cancel a fiction comedy movie that probably wouldn't of even raised any eyebrows considering what else is playing at the same time to compete with it?????????????

Seriously??????????????

N. Korea going to do 911 style attacks if it's shown????????????? Seriously???????

I'll just kick back and wait to see what kind of draconian legislation Washington comes up that'll restrict us here in the states from freely using the internet because of this...

ADDED:

U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials have gathered sufficient evidence to determine with high confidence that the North Korean government is responsible, said another person, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. It’s not entirely clear whether operatives from the country carried out the hack or sponsored it, said the person, a U.S. official with knowledge of the investigation.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...y-cyber-attack

I wonder if these "officials" used the same method for gathering evidence that they did to prove Russia downed MH17???????????????? or that a guy in a cave on the other-side of the world masterminded 911 using a walkie-talkie????????????

Wake up folk's...who could really actually do this and blame someone else for it and control the narrative all along????????????? (and get away with it)
Some stooge in N. Korea?????? I think not!

I'm surprised the state dept. hasn't produced a youtube video yet proving their case!!!!




"I know they're listening, I think they're reading my emails too"

[TargeT]

Posted by SilentFeathers (here)
In my opinion this whole story is so bizarre it almost seems like some kind of false flag

With the amount of media play it is getting... it's either that or an opportunity seized for some agenda.... not quite sure what yet though.

[SilentFeathers]

Posted by TargeT (here)

Posted by SilentFeathers (here)
In my opinion this whole story is so bizarre it almost seems like some kind of false flag

With the amount of media play it is getting... it's either that or an opportunity seized for some agenda.... not quite sure what yet though.

The hack at first looked real, perhaps done by a few bored geeks etc., everything change my opinion on this matter when it started focusing on the Interview and N. Korea; the guardians of peace......etc., and now I'm even seeing the race card being played! (Denzel Washington gossip about being a black actor and shouldn't get lead roles because of his color!). sheesh! this is getting ridiculous like the sandy hook crap and other bs stunts that have been pulled.

Totally looks like a political false flag to me, someone in Hollywood (Sony) pissed somebody off, perhaps they are late sending their monthly contribution/support check to the democratic party.? or Sony accidently leaked that they were going to support Jeb Bush instead of Hillary in 2016! lol!

[Carmody]

Posted by Paul (here)

Posted by TargeT (here)
you can see the attack destination countries and target countries, the US generally is #1 or #2 of BOTH categories; however it is rarely from military/government IP spaces (not that that means anything..).

The geographic location associated with an IP address might not be a reliable indicator of who is behind it ... it's too easy to rent computers, over the web, wherever you want.

Interesting map . Since that Norse map is based on their honeypot network, I suppose it would only show attacks directed at regions or countries that did have participating nodes in the Norse honeypot network (which seems to be just the US and Russia, right now, as I type this.)

The IP geolocation might give us a clue as to who "they" want to blame however. For example, an unusually high percentage of the IP addresses that I see in our Avalon server's blocked IP logs (for dubious activity) are from the Ukraine. From which, I suspect that someone would like to blame the Ukraine for a hack attack at some point ... just a guess.

Right now, for the last 100 days, 6 of the top 10 most commonly seen IP geolocations in Avalon blocked IP logs are from the Ukraine, 1 from Texas, 2 from China and 1 from Russia. I like to tease Ilie that Texas is beating out Romania on this stat <grin>.

At times in the past, Kansas City, Kansas, USA was leading our Avalon "bad IP" charts, thanks to a particular vendor of cheap web servers there that apparently was easy to deal with over the web.

There are some outfits that sell 'pipe' in Texas. for example, my pipe, apparently enters and exits in Texas, as my supplier buys from someone in that state. My supplier is independent and smaller, so not a major. Smaller outfits need to buy their pipe from someone...so... odds are in favor of attacks being publicly emergent from a supplier with many buyers, many doors. (I'm just writing that for everyone else, so they know how such a thing can happen) my pipe personally enters from somewhere away from Texas, in the physical sense, but integrates with the greater 'net' in that given Texas locale)

My supplier shops by price, quality, etc,and this Texas thing may have changed by now, but having all the local data shipped to another location and then integrating with the larger net is not actually - unusual. But definitely not how people think it works, which is the why of my mention of this situation.

This may help people understand that seemingly physical origins... are not in any way truly indicative of actual origin, even in the simplest parameters.

For example, it has many times been speculated, in some of the alternative press, that some of the attacks coming from china can easily originate from elsewhere, via proxy control of 'local to china' computers. Ie, if I was running a large corporate hacking scheme, via a competive corporate office, I MIGHT consider running a PC network by viral insertion (of a control scheme), in another country, and then use that network...to try and defraud/damage/etc my competitors. To use it as an unidentified appendage to commit industrial espionage. Imagine, in that scenario, how likely actual international espionage is. For the most part, it is 100% likely and viable.

Most people know how computers work, just about as well as they know how their car works (less, actually-the computer is a mystery/black box). Which leaves the door wide open to fundamental manipulation of personal computers, on a grand scale.