Did North Korea Really Hack Sony Pictures Because Of a Movie?
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Did North Korea Really Hack Sony Pictures Because Of a Movie?

October 11, 2019 100 Comments


Four years ago the world was shocked by the
hacking of one of the largest film studios in the world. As a subsidiary of Sony international, Sony
Pictures finances and distributes films around the world, and with a potentially very offensive
movie to the Kim Jong Un regime nearing release, it’s no surprise that when hacked, North Korea
was the first to be blamed. But what really happened and who is to blame? On November 24th, 2014 there are just weeks
before the release of the Seth Rogen and James Franco comedy, The Interview. Financed and developed by Sony, the film is
a fictionalized attempt on Kim Jong Un’s life, and portrays the dear leader as an unstable
and slightly baffoonish maniac. The project was always considered potentially
sensitive, and prior to Sony’s greenlight had been passed on by other studios- fear
of a possible North Korean reprisal hung around the project, and given North Korea’s previous
abductions of famous Japanese filmmakers and international assassinations, they weren’t
completely unfounded. Yet surprisingly it’s Sony pictures- a Japanese
owned company, and one of North Korea’s most hated international rivals- who greenlighted
the film and helped develop it. That morning Sony employees showed up to work
much like normal only to find themselves locked out of their computer network by a screen
filled with a glowing red skeleton and the following message: Hacked by #GOP. The screen cryptically stated Sony had already
been warned, and that “this is just the beginning.” The hackers also claimed to have obtained
all their internal data including “your secrets and top secrets”, then a final warning
that if they don’t obey, they’ll release the data to the world. A deadline offered by the hackers- 11:00 pm
that same day- was ignored, which led directly to a massive dump of internal documents, unreleased
films, and very embarrassing emails. Of the emails, racist exchanges between two
of Sony’s top producers were the most embarrassing which led to public apologies. The finger was almost immediately pointed
at North Korea, and for obvious reasons, with the FBI suspecting North Korea pretty early
into the investigation. But where they really to blame? Nobody knows exactly how long the perpetrators
spent hacking Sony, but per US investigators the culprits spent at least two months eavesdropping
on Sony and copying critical files from their network. Later in the investigation, one of the hackers
involved claimed that they had had access for at least a year prior to the November
2014 ultimatum- an impressive amount of time for Sony to have had no clue their security
had been completely defeated. The hackers would go on to claim that over
100 terabytes of data had been copied in the attack, but the claim was never confirmed. The attack was executed using a Server Message
Block Worm Tool- a form of malware- and included a listening implant to eavesdrop on Sony’s
most sensitive communications, a backdoor, proxy tool, destructive hard drive tool, and
destructive target cleaning tool. The FBI said that the components involved
clearly suggested an intent to gain entry repeatedly, extract information, have the
option to be destructive, and remove evidence of the attack itself. Other than a great deal of stolen emails,
documents, and unreleased films, it’s not known if the perpetrators actually destroyed
any content within the network, but given the multiple redundancy taken with film scripts
and final edits of films, the act would have been largely pointless anyways. Unknown to the public, Sony Pictures executives
had actually received an email the previous Friday from a group called “God’sApstls”,
demanding monetary compensation or “Sony Pictures will be bombarded as a whole”. The email had been pretty much ignored by
everyone at Sony, with most completely missing it in the massive amount of daily emails,
or discarding it as junk mail. Note to any would be hackers: learn from thousands
of struggling screenwriters and don’t email your ultimatums-or scripts- to producers who’s
inboxes fill with thousands of emails daily, it will literally never get opened by the
slave, we mean intern, tasked with pouring over each one for anything important. With their deadline ignored, the Guardians
of Peace began leaking unreleased films online, which would go on to hurt Sony in the box
office. They also began to leak other data, to include
the stolen emails, in order to gain attention from social media sites and news outlets-
yet didn’t specify what they wanted in return. Sony immediately put its top IT professionals
on the job and wisely contacted the FBI and private security firm FireEye to help protect
Sony employees who’s personal data had been exposed, repair their digital infrastructure,
and find the source of the leak. Four days later though a public report was
already blaming North Korea for the hack. On December 8th, 2014 another major dump of
information was dumped by the GOP, along with language threatening Sony relating to the
September 11th terrorist attacks. Big mistake. The terror-like threats immediately garnered
the attention of US security agencies, and what had been initially considered a nearly
inconsequential criminal matter, suddenly became a national security concern. With the US intelligence agency turning its
attention against the Guardians of Peace, nobody was surprised when North Korea was
quickly being identified as the perpetrator. Most mysterious of all however was North Korea’s
complete loss of access to the internet for several days during early 2015, a feat which
surely only the most powerful cybersecurity agencies in the world- Russia, US, or China-
could have managed, and possibly a ‘shot across the bow’ warning to the rogue state. Debate about North Korea’s culpability continued
though, with even Seth Rogen saying in 2017 that he wasn’t sure it really had been North
Korea. Yet the timing of the attack- just weeks before
the release of The Interview- didn’t seem like a coincidence. There’s also the fact that North Korea had
petitioned the UN to block the release of the film, stating that a film portraying the
assassination of a head of state was improper and dangerous to peace and stability. We guess that if you live in a nation where
your head of state is a maniac who starves his own people and throws them in gulags,
such a film may indeed be dangerous to peace and stability. The UN naturally disregarded North Korea’s
request and reminded the hermit kingdom that that’s not how freedom works. There was also the specific threat made against
The Interview, followed by warnings such as “how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror
should be doomed to” if people went to see the film. The threat said “the world will be full
of fear, remember the 11th of September 2001.” It warned people to stay away from movie theaters
showing the film and that if anybody lived near a theater they should leave their house. Yet doubts about North Korea’s culpability
continued, with many saying that it had been an inside job done by one of six disgruntled
former employees who had both the motivation and know-how to execute such an attack. But just this September the US Department
of Justice at last laid out sweeping evidence showing that North Korea had indeed been behind
the attack, and specifically naming one individual: Park Jin Hyok, highlighting his attacks against
Sony, the WannaCry attack, and a major theft from a bank in Bangladesh. Ultimately its clear that North Korea was
behind the Sony pictures hack, but what’s even more clear is that you really, really
should not threaten terrorist action against the US. Had the hackers left September 11th well enough
alone, the hack would have been considered a fairly routine criminal matter and we might
never know- but due to the terrorist threats, the US not only discovered the source of the
attack, but somehow managed to track down at least one specific individual. One individual that has to live in fear of
extradition for the rest of his life if he ever steps out of North Korea again. What do you think about the Sony Pictures
hack? Was it really North Korea, or are they just
a convenient scapegoat? Let us know in the comments! Also, make sure you check our other video:
50 Insane Facts About North Korea You Didn’t Know! As always if you enjoyed this video don’t
forget to Like, Share, and Subscribe! See you tomorrow!

and Country Education Educational hack hackers hacking james franco Kim Jong Un Korea movie movies north North Korea North Korea (Country) north korea movie north korea movies seth rogan Seth Rogen Sony sony hack Sony Pictures sony pictures entertainment (production company) the the interview the interview clip the interview kim jong un the interview movie the interview scene

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  1. Being stuck in one place for the rest of your life, living in fear of being extradited must be awful… What do you think?

    Reply

  5. I found it amazing how my government could shut down a whole nation's internet for a good amount of time. I don't care about the rest of this stuff I just found that fact amazing. That being said I heard the malware or something left a digital fingerprint and they immeditaly knew it was north Korea. I don't know though.

    Reply

  10. 1:08 YOU THINK THE JAPANESE FEAR DEATH AND THREATS? HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THEIR WAR TACTICS. Of course Japan would be the one to greenlight this. Ahahhahaha

    Reply

  11. None of this would've happened if they didn't leak the NSA's SMB malware.
    The WannaCry ransomware is based on this NSA leak.

    Reply

  20. This also leads to the Ghostbusters 2016 mess and the Amy Pascal email, where she threatened the original Director of the original 1984 Ghostbusters and then started to threaten the original cast before her emails cut off. But that's not what got her fired, it was the racist remarks against Obama and the ugly thing she said about Angelina Jolie that got her ass fired. What a mess.

    Reply

  24. That doesn't explain why the threats of Terror were nearly identical to Kim Jung Il's threats of Terror in Team America

    Reply

  34. I really like the information in these videos. Unfortunately, the background music is a little too much and can be distracting. Hopefully in future videos they will stop the background music.

    Reply

  59. It's not a big deal for that guy to hack T-Series and delete T-Series he should've done that then people would be proud of him but instead of doing that he hacked sony…

    Reply

  64. You said the individual lives in fear but not at all the dude made North Korea rich when he worked with a team to steal 1 trillion dollars from banks world wide the guy is a genius if you check the planning of the robberies it was planned perfectly to go through every bank on the country’s national holiday which meant by the time they realised they had been robbed it was too late at the robberies never included physical people to ever enter any vaults or risk their lives.

    Reply

  68. No surprise, that Kim was not happy about the film… It's "fine" when you do a film disliking the nondemocracy regime. Sony's fault.

    Reply

  74. They should make a new one about Trump cuz he's definitely mentally instable and incompetent, not to mention the dementia and pathological lying

    Reply

  85. ISIS claims responsibility for all of these incidents. Attacks such as these are just hobbies however, ISIS is too busy colonizing the Andromeda Galaxy and building Dyson Spheres and Neutron-Star Forges and exploring the time-stream with their advanced omnipotent technology.

    Reply

  86. man its been 4 years since this happened but also i loved the interview movie with seth rogen and it was great how they made fun of him

    Reply

  91. North Korea literally kidnapped a famous director and his actress wife because Leader wanted a perfect Godzilla movie made just for him.
    Yes, I am serious. Look up Pulgasari.

    Reply

  92. "A film portraying the assignation of a head of state is improper". Coming from a country with concentration camps still to this day. Idiots. But with films like Jack and Jill and Pixels, they should just wait a while longer. Sony Studios is doomed. Gwahahahaha!!!!

    Reply

  93. Ok so the ballpark is…

    The Interview hurt Lil' Rocket Man's ego so he had some of his folks hack the studio that gave the film the green light so he can get even and feel a little better about himself…

    This is why Thanos did nothing wrong. No, honestly I wanna know what this dipfag's fate was in Infinity War if he was snapped or not.

    Reply

  97. why do you use the anonymous logo as the hackers they are much better than north Korea at their worst in fact they are responsible for taking down dictators

    Reply

  100. I saw the film. Much Ado About Nothing. Had Fearless Leader just let it slide, the film would have closed out and gone to DVD in a couple of weeks. 😒

    Reply

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