Sony Pictures Entertainment has been hit by a cyber-attack which may have forced a shut-down of its entire corporate network, according to reports.
Some employees and former staff took to the web following the alleged incident on Monday, with this Reddit user claiming that workers’ computers were defaced with an image reading “Hacked by #GOP.”
GOP apparently stands for ‘Guardians of Peace’ – a group which appears to be trying to blackmail the entertainment giant. A message read, “We’ve obtained all your internal data including your secrets,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Sony officials declined to give much more information to news outlets apart from a brief statement that the firm is currently “investigating an IT matter.”
Other reports suggest that staff were told to go home to work from their personal computers, and not to try and access corporate email.
Phil Lieberman, CEO of security vendor Lieberman Software, slammed Sony for its incompetence and said the firm could be looking for a new CIO and CISO soon.
“This was a perfect example of sloppy IT security and a CISO that did not implement proper privileged identity management, or a disaster recovery backup plan for continuity of business,” he added.
“The consequences were a loss of control over his environment caused by a focus on convenience of IT rather than the security of the enterprise. The cost of IT security was perceived as too high vs. the benefit of convenience for their administrators.”
The incident comes just a day after hacking group DerpTrolling claimed to have successfully breached the PlayStation Network, obtaining the email addresses and passwords of gamers.
Sony has denied the claims, although that part of the business did suffer a serious cyber-attack in August which rendered the PlayStation Network temporarily unusable to tens of millions.
Sony was, of course, at the center of one of the largest ever hacks in history, when personal account information on over 70 million users was obtained back in 2011.