UPDATED 15:29 EST / DECEMBER 30 2014

An inside job? The Sony hacks dissected

After the Sony Corp. The Interview data hack during late November, followed by the Christmas Sony PlayStation hack, blame has been making the rounds to everyone from the North Korean government, to hacker group Lizard Squad, to former Sony employees. Is it possible that all are to blame?

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‘The Interview’ Sony hack

 

The FBI remains focused on North Korea as the culprit for November’s Sony, publicly blaming Pyongyang. In fact, an FBI spokesperson told news organization The Daily Beast, “We think it’s them,” referring to the North Korean government.

However, the Bureau is now looking into claims the hack was an inside job after new evidence from Norse Corp., a live attack intelligence company, revealed that “a group of six individuals, including at least one disgruntled ex-Sony employee, is behind the assault.”

And according to The Security Ledger, the Norse intelligence reveals that the Sony hack was pulled off by six individuals, including two in the U.S., one in Canada, one in Singapore and one in Thailand.

Even though the FBI says Kim Jong Un’s regime is responsible for the Sony November cyberattack, Bureau agents met Monday with Norse analysts to “quietly” discuss other theories, including the disgruntled or current Sony employee theory.

Hacker group claims responsibility

 

The hacker group Lizard Squads claims it was to blame for the Sony PlayStation take-down. According to a Washington Post Q&A with a purported Lizard Squad member, the group’s goal was to help the public see security holes in large companies which put personal data at risk.

The Lizard Squad member told The Washington Post: “Well, one of our biggest goals is to have fun, of course. But we’re also exposing massive security issues with these companies people are trusting their personal information with. The customers of these companies should be rather worried.”

The Lizard Squad member also revealed that the hacker group gave the Guardians Of Peace (GOP), another hacking group, Sony employee log-ins, which were used to access emails within Sony and gain access to information about the film The Interview.

The fallout

 

While the distribution of the movie The Interview was severely crippled, moviegoers could still find it at small theaters across the U.S. or online at sites like YouTube. And now the movie has earned the title of Sony’s Top Online Film to Date, earning almost $18 million and counting.

As far as the PlayStation hack, Christmas was ruined for millions of gamers everywhere as online access was limited for most players, the downtime lasting days. But on December 27, PlayStation officials said the network was fully functional again in a “PlayStation Network Update” it posted on its blog. Part of the blog is below:

[Dec 27, 2014] UPDATE: PlayStation Network is back online. As you probably know, PlayStation Network and some other gaming services were attacked over the holidays with artificially high levels of traffic designed to disrupt connectivity and online gameplay. This may have prevented your access to the network and its services over the last few days. Thanks again for your support and patience. We’ll provide any further updates here.

Mellisa Tolentino contributed to this article

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