Whats happening to Sony? That's the question of many throughout the internet as Sony is being reported to be hacked one after another.
As we recall, aside from past jailbreak issues, Sony Pictures Entertainment have been invaded by a hacker group called #GOP (Guardians of Peace) late last month, that involved the leak of what initially appeared to be files full of employees passwords.
Then another issue about hacking Sony Pictures' upcoming film, The Interview, which depicts a CIA plot to assassinate leader Kin Jong-Un, rises, and investigators quickly pointed their fingers at North Korea.
After a few days, Sony has been hit by another hack, where the PlayStation Network and store has been targeted and taken offline. As gamers tried to enter the site on Sunday night, a message reading "Page Not Found! It's not you. It's the Internet's fault.", keeps popping up.
As the investigation continues, an anonymous individual or group calling itself Lizard Squad has claimed responsibility with a tweet late on Sunday reading "PSN Login #offline #LizardSquad". The hackers claim to have stolen around 100 terabytes of internal Sony files and films, including Sony's forthcoming movies' "Annie", "Mr. Turner" and "To Write Love On Her Arms."
But, not just that, because the hack is worse that you have thought.
It was reported that the Sony Pictures hack has revealed sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers, of more than 47,000 current and aliases of former Sony employees-some of them were famous Hollywood stars. Including Rob Schneider, whose alias of "Nazzo Good" doubles when spoken aloud as a review of his movies; and to Jessica Alba, who apparently checks into hotels under the name "Cash Money." Ice Cube has the most badass aliases of anyone on the list - he uses both Darius Stone and O'Shea Jackson. (Stone is a badass name because it was his character's name in the seminal XXX: State of the Union, and Jackson is because it's his actual name.)
While, Fusion reports that Tom Hanks, Jonah Hill, Brad Pitt, and Julia Roberts are among those affected.
The documents as also reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, contain the SSNs of actors and directors involved in Sony-produced TV shows and movies, including Sylvester Stallone, Judd Apatow, and Rebel Wilson.
According to Identity Finder, Social Security numbers appeared more than 1.1 million times in the 601 publicly-posted files stolen by hackers.
The data security firm also found a handful other other identifiable data, including full names, dates of birth, and home addresses, which Identity Find said could easily be used to commit identity fraud.
"The most concerning finding in our analysis is the sheer number of duplicate copies of Social Security numbers that existed inside the files," Identify Finder CEO Todd Feinman said in a statement. "In this instance, some SSNs appeared in more than 400 different locations, giving hackers more opportunities to wreak havoc."
In line with the investigation, the FBI recently issued a warning to U.S. businesses about malicious software like the kind that took down Sony's internal network. The "flash" warning provided technical details about how the attack was pulled off, as well as advice on how to respond to similar malware.
"As we have seen from the myriad data breaches this year, every organization is vulnerable to an attack," Identify Finder's Feinman said. "Security technologies are an important shield, but minimizing the target and reducing the footprint of sensitive data is more critical than ever."
