14 DAY TRIAL // Top executives from Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) received a fresh email on Thursday night claiming to be from Guardians of Peace, saying that they made a wise decision by cancelling the release of “The Interview” comedy movie.
The information comes from CNN’s Brian Stelter, who says that it was shared by “a source close to the company.” Of course, the identity of the leaker remains unknown, which is something the public has grown accustomed to by now.
It appears that the communication was titled “Message from GOP” and it matched the style and structure of previous messages believed to be indeed from the GoP, the hackers claiming the November 24 attack on SPE’s computer network, which ended in wiping the data stored on the machines.
However, the cleaning operation was initiated only after the hackers made sure they exfiltrated massive amounts of confidential information. This was subsequently released to the public in batches, exposing internal private communication, details about projects, infrastructure, employees and collaborators.
Pulling the release of the movie is not enough
As reported by CNN from their source, in their latest email, GoP said they were pleased with the decision of the company to pull the movie from cinemas, adding that they wanted the motion picture never to be released, under any form, be it piracy.
More than this, they demanded that “everything related to the movie, including its trailers” be taken down from any website that hosts them.
If the company does not comply, they threatened with making publicly available new caches of confidential information, suggesting that they have something more sensitive than what has already been released.
“Now we want you never let the movie released, distributed or leaked in any form of, for instance, DVD or piracy. And we want everything related to the movie, including its trailers, as well as its full version down from any website hosting them immediately,” reads the alleged email from GoP.
Attribution is very difficult to make
Multiple news outlets, CNN included, have published articles citing unofficial sources saying that the US investigators analyzing the Sony incident have determined that North Korea is behind the attack.
However, an official response from the US government is still to come, especially since much of the evidence pointing to the Hermit Kingdom is mostly circumstantial and no solid connection has been made.
Security experts agree that attribution of an attack beyond any doubt is extremely difficult to make because hackers could use infrastructure from different countries and code with red herrings to throw investigators off track.