02
Lights out
Sony Pictures
Governments love cyberattacks because they’re effective, affordable and deniable. A great combination. ‘Deniability’ is the most important property.
MIKKO HYPPONEN, chief research officer, F-Secure
24 November 2014 was the Monday before Thanksgiving, one of the busiest days in the American calendar as everyone tries to get a week’s worth of work done in three days ahead of the nation’s biggest family holiday, which would effectively start on Wednesday evening. For 6,500 staff at Sony Pictures Entertainment, though, the short work week was about to get even shorter.
At about 8.15 am, the screens on every working PC went black. Then they lit up with a red script on a black background – an image file saying ‘Hacked by ...
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