14 DAY TRIAL // Sony is not the only victim of the incident carried out by individuals calling themselves Guardians of Peace (GoP), as the hackers also stole private information about the employees of the company, part of it being leaked online and containing medical data.
GoP is slowly seeping out the files they took from the Sony computers in what appears to be an operation extending over several months. Apart from corporate confidential details, the hackers also spilled into the public digital domain files with health data on Sony employees, their children and/or spouses.
Personal health information leaked
The spreadsheet published by GoP does not contain the names of the individuals, but it features information that could be used to identify them based on details from other documents, where names and social security numbers appear.
In a report from Bloomberg, it is said that more than three dozen employees are impacted. The data now available to the public includes details about an employee’s child with special needs, along with the diagnostic and the treatment received.
This is included in a memo by a human resources executive addressing the company’s benefits committee, and disclosed an appeal of thousands of dollars that had been denied to the employee by the insurance company.
In a different file, health condition and medical charges incurred by the company for 34 of its workers is revealed. Diseases such as cancer and hear disorders are listed.
Sony employees are collateral damage
The files belong to the company and it is not uncommon for such information to be sent to the human resource department in relation to denied insurance claims.
However, these people were not the target of GoP, and yet, their privacy has been invaded, making them collateral victims in the hacker’s fight against Sony.
Last week, some Sony employees received a threatening email allegedly from the leader of the hackers, demanding them to turn against the company. It appears that the real hackers contacted the company saying that they had nothing to do with that incident.
On November 24, the computers at Sony’s unit in Culver City, California, were taken down by a worm designed to wipe the storage devices on the machines.
According to different publications online, GoP said that they had taken about 100 terabytes of information from the company’s computers, which is now being made public by the attackers, in batches.
The origin of the attackers has not been determined, but it is believed that they operate under the flag of North Korea, which denied any involvement in the incident.
The reason behind the attack is not entirely clear, as the group shared their demands with the company privately. On the other hand, in a new communication, they also requested that the comedy “The Interview” be pulled immediately.
