On November 24, 2014, a
hacker
A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...
group identifying itself as "
Guardians of Peace
Lazarus Group (also known by other monikers such as Guardians of Peace or Whois Team
) is a cybercrime group made up of an unknown number of individuals run by the government of North Korea. While not much is known about the Lazarus Group, resea ...
"
leaked a release of confidential data from the
film studio Sony Pictures
Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Sony Pictures or SPE, and formerly known as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.) is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio Conglomerate (company), conglom ...
Entertainment (SPE). The data included personal information about Sony Pictures employees and their families, emails between employees, information about executive salaries at the company, copies of then-unreleased Sony films, plans for future Sony films, scripts for certain films, and other information. The perpetrators then employed a variant of the
Shamoon
Shamoon ( fa, شمعون), also known as W32.DistTrack, is a modular computer virus that was discovered in 2012, targeting then-recent 32-bit NT kernel versions of Microsoft Windows. The virus was notable due to the destructive nature of the atta ...
wiper malware to erase Sony's computer infrastructure.
During the hack, the group demanded that Sony withdraw its then-upcoming film ''
The Interview
''The Interview'' is a 2014 satirical alternate history action-comedy film co-produced and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg in their second directorial work, following ''This Is the End'' (2013). The screenplay was written by Dan Ste ...
'', a comedy about a plot to assassinate
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
n leader
Kim Jong-un
Kim Jong-un (; , ; born 8 January 1982) is a North Korean politician who has been Supreme Leader of North Korea since 2011 and the leader of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) since 2012. He is a son of Kim Jong-il, who was North Korea's sec ...
, and threatened
terrorist attack
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
s at cinemas screening the film. After many major U.S. theater chains opted not to screen ''The Interview'' in response to these threats, Sony chose to cancel the film's formal premiere and mainstream release, opting to skip directly to a downloadable digital release followed by a limited theatrical release the next day.
United States intelligence officials, after evaluating the software, techniques, and network sources used in the hack, concluded that the attack was sponsored by the government of North Korea, which has since denied all responsibility.
Hack and perpetrators
The exact duration of the hack is yet unknown. U.S. investigators say the culprits spent at least two months copying critical files. A purported member of the Guardians of Peace (GOP) who has claimed to have performed the hack stated that they had access for at least a year prior to its discovery in November 2014, according to ''
Wired
''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San ...
''.
The hackers involved claim to have taken more than 100 terabytes of data from Sony, but that claim has never been confirmed. The attack was conducted using malware. Although Sony was not specifically mentioned in its advisory, US-CERT said that attackers used a
Server Message Block
Server Message Block (SMB) is a communication protocol originally developed in 1983 by Barry A. Feigenbaum at IBM and intended to provide shared access to files and printers across nodes on a network of systems running IBM's OS/2. It also provides ...
(SMB)
Worm
Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes (though not always).
Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete wo ...
Tool to conduct attacks against a major entertainment company. Components of the attack included a listening implant, backdoor, proxy tool, destructive hard drive tool, and destructive target cleaning tool. The components clearly suggest an intent to gain repeated entry, extract information, and be destructive, as well as remove evidence of the attack.
Sony was made aware of the hack on Monday, November 24, 2014, as the malware previously installed rendered many Sony employees' computers inoperable by the software, with the warning by a group calling themselves the Guardians of Peace, along with a portion of the confidential data taken during the hack.
Several Sony-related Twitter accounts were also taken over.
This followed a message that several Sony Pictures executives had received via email on the previous Friday, November 21; the message, coming from a group called "God'sApstls" , demanded "monetary compensation" or otherwise, "Sony Pictures will be bombarded as a whole".
This email message had been mostly ignored by executives, lost in the volume they had received or treated as spam email.
In addition to the activation of the malware on November 24, the message included a warning for Sony to decide on their course of action by 11:00p.m. that evening, although no apparent threat was made when that deadline passed.
In the days following this hack, the Guardians of Peace began leaking yet-unreleased films and started to release portions of the confidential data to attract the attention of social media sites, although they did not specify what they wanted in return.
Sony quickly organized internal teams to try to manage the loss of data to the Internet, and contacted the FBI and the private security firm
FireEye
Trellix (formerly FireEye and McAfee Enterprise) is a privately held cybersecurity company founded in 2022. It has been involved in the detection and prevention of major cyber attacks.
It provides hardware, software, and services to investigat ...
to help protect Sony employees whose personal data was exposed by the hack, repair the damaged computer infrastructure and trace the source of the leak.
The first public report concerning a North Korean link to the attack was published by ''
Re/code
''Recode'' (formerly ''Re/code'') is a technology news website that focused on the business of Silicon Valley. Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher founded it in January 2014, after they left Dow Jones and the similar website they had previously ...
'' on November 28 and later confirmed by
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...
.
On December 8, 2014, alongside the eighth large data dump of confidential information, the Guardians of Peace threatened Sony with language relating to the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
that drew the attention of U.S. security agencies.
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
n state-sponsored hackers are suspected by the United States of being involved in part due to specific threats made toward Sony and movie theaters showing ''
The Interview
''The Interview'' is a 2014 satirical alternate history action-comedy film co-produced and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg in their second directorial work, following ''This Is the End'' (2013). The screenplay was written by Dan Ste ...
'', a comedy film about an assassination attempt against
Kim Jong-un
Kim Jong-un (; , ; born 8 January 1982) is a North Korean politician who has been Supreme Leader of North Korea since 2011 and the leader of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) since 2012. He is a son of Kim Jong-il, who was North Korea's sec ...
. North Korean officials had previously expressed concerns about the film to the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
, stating that "to allow the production and distribution of such a film on the assassination of an incumbent head of a sovereign state should be regarded as the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism as well as an act of war."
In its first quarter financials for 2015, Sony Pictures set aside $15 million to deal with ongoing damages from the hack. Sony has bolstered its cyber-security infrastructure as a result, using solutions to prevent similar hacks or data loss in the future.
Sony co-chairperson
Amy Pascal
Amy Beth Pascal (born March 25, 1958) is an American film producer and business executive. She served as the Chairperson of the Motion Pictures Group of Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) and Co-Chairperson of SPE, including Sony Pictures Televis ...
announced in the wake of the hack that she would step down as of May 2015, and instead will become more involved with film production under Sony.
Information obtained
According to a notice letter dated December 8, 2014, from SPE to its employees, SPE learned on December 1, 2014, that personally identifiable information about employees and their dependents may have been obtained by unauthorized individuals as a result of a "brazen cyber-attack", including names, addresses,
Social Security numbers and financial information.
On December 7, 2014,
C-SPAN
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...
reported that the hackers stole 47,000 unique Social Security numbers from the SPE computer network.
Although personal data may have been stolen, early news reports focused mainly on celebrity gossip and embarrassing details about Hollywood and film industry business affairs gleaned by the media from electronic files, including private email messages. Among the information revealed in the emails was that Sony CEO
Kazuo Hirai pressured Sony Pictures co-chairwoman Amy Pascal to "soften" the assassination scene in ''The Interview''.
Many details relating to the actions of the Sony Pictures executives, including Pascal and Michael Lynton, were also released, in a manner that appeared to be intended to spur distrust between these executives and other employees of Sony.
Other emails released in the hack showed Pascal and
Scott Rudin
Scott Rudin (born July 14, 1958) is an American film, television, and theatre producer. His films include the Academy Award-winning Best Picture ''No Country for Old Men,'' as well as '' Uncut Gems'', '' Lady Bird, Fences, The Girl with the Drag ...
, a film and theatrical producer, discussing
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie (; born Angelina Jolie Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress, filmmaker, humanitarian and former Special Envoy to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award ...
. In the emails, Rudin referred to Jolie as "a minimally talented spoiled brat" because Jolie wanted
David Fincher to direct her film ''Cleopatra'', which Rudin felt would interfere with Fincher directing a
planned film about
Steve Jobs. Pascal and Rudin were also noted to have had an email exchange about Pascal's upcoming encounter with
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
that included characterizations described as racist, which led to Pascal's resignation from Sony.
[Mike Fleming, Jr.]
Scott Rudin Apologizes After Leak Of Sony’s Hacked Racially Insensitive E-Mails On Barack Obama
''Deadline Hollywood
''Deadline Hollywood'', commonly known as ''Deadline'' and also referred to as ''Deadline.com'', is an online news site founded as the news blog ''Deadline Hollywood Daily'' by Nikki Finke in 2006. The site is updated several times a day, with ...
'', December 11, 2014[Variety Staff]
Sony’s Amy Pascal Apologizes for Obama Emails
''Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'', December 11, 2014[Christopher Rosen]
Scott Rudin & Amy Pascal Apologize After Racially Insensitive Emails About Obama Leak
''The Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
'', December 11, 2014 The two had suggested they should mention films about African-Americans upon meeting the president, such as ''
Django Unchained
''Django Unchained'' () is a 2012 American revisionist Western film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson, with Walton Goggins, Dennis Ch ...
'', ''
12 Years a Slave'' and ''
The Butler
''The Butler'' (full title ''Lee Daniels' The Butler'') is a 2013 American historical drama film directed and co-produced by Lee Daniels and with a screenplay by Danny Strong. It is inspired by Wil Haygood's ''Washington Post'' article "A But ...
'', all of which depict
slavery in the United States
The legal institution of human chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominantly in the South. Sl ...
or the pre-civil rights era.
Pascal and Rudin later apologized.
Details of lobbying efforts by politician
Mike Moore Michael Moore is an American filmmaker and author.
Michael Moore may also refer to:
Academia
* Michael G. Moore (fl. 1970s–2020s), professor of education
* Michael S. Moore (academic) (fl. 1960s–2020s), American law professor
* Michael Moore ...
on behalf of the
Digital Citizens Alliance
The Digital Citizens Alliance is a United States non-profit organization focused on Internet safety issues. It releases reports focused on malware, credit card theft, online drug sales to teens, piracy, and overall Internet consumer safety. In 201 ...
and
FairSearch
FairSearch is a group of organizations that lobby against Google's market dominance in online search and related practices. The group is controlled by Oracle and Naspers executives and has been characterized as a consumer protection organization, ...
against
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
were also revealed.
The leak revealed multiple details of behind-the-scenes politics on
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...
' current
''Spider-Man'' film series, including emails between Pascal and others to various heads of
Marvel Studios
Marvel Studios, LLC (originally known as Marvel Films from 1993 to 1996) is an American film and television production company that is a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, a division of the Walt Disney Company. Marvel Studios produces the Mar ...
. Due to the outcry from fans, the
Spider-Man license was eventually negotiated to be shared between both studios. In addition to the emails, a copy of the screenplay for the
''James Bond'' film ''
Spectre
Spectre, specter or the spectre may refer to:
Religion and spirituality
* Vision (spirituality)
* Apparitional experience
* Ghost
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Spectre'' (1977 film), a made-for-television film produced and writ ...
'', released in 2015, was obtained.
[ Several future Sony Pictures films, including '']Annie
Annie may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Annie (given name), a given name and a list of people and fictional characters with the name
* Annie (actress) (born 1975), Indian actress
* Annie (singer) (born 1977), Norwegian singer
The ...
'', ''Mr. Turner
''Mr. Turner'' is a 2014 biographical drama film based on the last 25 years of the life of artist J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851). Written and directed by Mike Leigh, the film stars Timothy Spall in the title role, with Dorothy Atkinson, Paul Je ...
'', '' Still Alice'' and ''To Write Love on Her Arms
To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA) is an American nonprofit organization that aims to present hope for people struggling with addiction, depression, self-injury and thoughts of suicide, while also investing in treatment and recovery. Based in M ...
'', were also leaked. The hackers intended to release additional information on December 25, 2014, which coincided with the release date of ''The Interview'' in the United States.
According to ''The Daily Dot
''The Daily Dot'' is a digital media company covering the culture of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Founded by Nicholas White in 2011, ''The Daily Dot'' is headquartered in Austin, Texas.
The site, conceived as the Internet's "hometown ...
'', based on the email leaks, while he was at Sony, executive Charles Sipkins was responsible for following senior executives' orders to edit Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
articles about them.
In December 2014, former Sony Pictures Entertainment employees filed four lawsuits against the company for not protecting their data that was released in the hack, which included Social Security numbers and medical information. As part of the emails, it was revealed that Sony was in talks with Nintendo
is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...
to make an animated film based on the ''Super Mario Bros.
is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The successor to the 1983 arcade game '' Mario Bros.'' and the first game in the ''Super Mario'' series, it was first released in 1985 for ...
'' series (which came to fruition 4 years later, albeit under Universal
Universal is the adjective for universe.
Universal may also refer to:
Companies
* NBCUniversal, a media and entertainment company
** Universal Animation Studios, an American Animation studio, and a subsidiary of NBCUniversal
** Universal TV, a ...
and Illumination instead of Sony, and is currently slated for a 2023 release).
In January 2015, details were revealed of the MPAA
The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distribu ...
's lobbying of the United States International Trade Commission
The United States International Trade Commission (USITC or I.T.C.) is an agency of the United States federal government that advises the legislative and executive branches on matters of trade. It is an independent, bipartisan entity that analyze ...
to mandate U.S. ISPs
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...
either at the internet transit
Internet transit is the service of allowing network traffic to cross or "transit" a computer network, usually used to connect a smaller Internet service provider (ISP) to the larger Internet. Technically, it consists of two bundled services:
* The ...
level or consumer level internet service provider
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...
, to implement IP address blocking
IP address blocking, or IP banning, is a configuration of a network service that blocks requests from hosts with certain IP addresses. IP address blocking is commonly used to protect against brute force attacks and to prevent access by a disrup ...
pirate websites as well as linking websites. WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks () is an international Nonprofit organization, non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous Source (journalism), sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activism, Internet acti ...
published over 30,000 documents that were obtained via the hack in April 2015, with founder Julian Assange stating that the document archive "shows the inner workings of an influential multinational corporation" that should be made public.
In November 2015, after Charlie Sheen
Carlos Irwin Estévez (born September 3, 1965), known professionally as Charlie Sheen, is an American actor. He has appeared in films such as ''Platoon'' (1986), ''Wall Street'' (1987), '' Young Guns'' (1988), '' The Rookie'' (1990), ''The Thr ...
revealed he was HIV positive in a television interview to Matt Lauer
Matthew Todd Lauer (; born December 30, 1957) is an American former television news personality, best known for his work with NBC News. After serving as a local news personality in New York City on WNBC, his first national exposure was as the ne ...
, it was revealed that information about his diagnosis was leaked in an email between senior Sony bosses dated March 10, 2014. In December, Snap Inc.
Snap Inc. is an American camera and social media company, founded on September 16, 2011, by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown based in Santa Monica, California. The company developed and maintains technological products and services ...
, due to the hack, was revealed to have acquired Vergence Labs for $15 million in cash and stock, the developers of Epiphany Eyewear
Epiphany Eyewear are smartglasses developed by Vergence Labs. The glasses record video stored within the glasses' hardware for live-stream upload to a computer or social media. The glasses use smartphone technology. The head mounted display is a m ...
, and mobile app
A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...
Scan for $150 million.
Threats surrounding ''The Interview''
On December 16, for the first time since the hack, the "Guardians of Peace" mentioned the then-upcoming film ''The Interview'' by name, and threatened to take terrorist actions against the film's New York City premiere at Sunshine Cinema on December 18, as well as on its American wide release date, set for December 25. Sony pulled the theatrical release the following day.
Seth Rogen
Seth Aaron Rogen (; born April 15, 1982) is a Canadian-American actor, comedian and filmmaker. Originally a stand-up comedian in Vancouver, he moved to Los Angeles for a part in Judd Apatow's series '' Freaks and Geeks'', and then got a part o ...
and James Franco
James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is an American actor and filmmaker. For his role in '' 127 Hours'' (2010), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Franco is known for his roles in films, such as Sam Raimi's ''Spider-M ...
, the stars of ''The Interview'', responded by saying they did not know if it was definitely caused by the film, but later canceled all media appearances tied to the film outside of the planned New York City premiere on December 16, 2014. Following initial threats made towards theaters that would show ''The Interview'', several theatrical chains, including Carmike Cinemas
Carmike Cinemas was a motion picture exhibitor headquartered in Columbus, Georgia. As of March 2016, the company had 276 theaters with 2,954 screens in 41 states, and was the fourth largest movie theater chain in the United States. The company ...
, Bow Tie Cinemas, Regal Entertainment Group
Regal Cinemas (also Regal Entertainment Group) is an American movie theater chain headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee. A division of Cineworld, Regal operates the second-largest theater circuit in the United States, with over 7,200 screens i ...
, Showcase Cinemas
Showcase Cinemas is a movie theater chain owned and operated by National Amusements. It operates in a total of four countries: the United States (flagship), Brazil, the United Kingdom and Argentina.
Locations
Showcase operates more than 950 ...
, AMC Theatres
AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (d/b/a AMC Theatres, originally an abbreviation for American Multi-Cinema; often referred to simply as AMC and known in some countries as AMC Cinemas or AMC Multi-Cinemas) is an American movie theater chain fou ...
, Cinemark Theatres
Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (stylized as CineMark from 1998 to 2022 and CINEMARK since 2022) is an American movie theater chain that started operations in 1984 and since then it has operated theaters with hundreds of locations throughout the Americ ...
, as well as several independent movie theater owners announced that they would not screen ''The Interview''. The same day, Sony stated that they would allow theaters to opt out of showing ''The Interview'', but later decided to fully pull the national December 25 release of the film, as well as announce that there were "no further release plans" to release the film on any platform, including home video, in the foreseeable future.
On December 18, two messages (both allegedly from the Guardians of Peace) were released. One, sent in a private message to Sony executives, stated that they would not release any further information if Sony never releases the film and removed its presence from the internet. The other, posted to Pastebin
A pastebin or text storage site is a type of online content-hosting service where users can store plain text (e.g. source code snippets for code review via Internet Relay Chat (IRC)). The first pastebin was the eponymous pastebin.com. Other ...
, a web application used for text storage that the Guardians of Peace have used for previous messages, stated that the studio had "suffered enough" and could release ''The Interview'', but only if Kim Jong-un's death scene was not "too happy". The post also stated that the company cannot "test hem
A hem in sewing is a garment finishing method, where the edge of a piece of cloth is folded and sewn to prevent unravelling of the fabric and to adjust the length of the piece in garments, such as at the end of the sleeve or the bottom of the g ...
again", and that "if ony Picturesmakes anything else, hey
Hey or Hey! may refer to:
Music
* Hey (band), a Polish rock band
Albums
* ''Hey'' (Andreas Bourani album) or the title song (see below), 2014
* ''Hey!'' (Julio Iglesias album) or the title song, 1980
* ''Hey!'' (Jullie album) or the title s ...
will be here ready to fight".
President Barack Obama, in an end-of-year press speech on December 19, commented on the Sony hacking and stated that he felt Sony made a mistake in pulling the film, and that producers should "not get into a pattern where you are intimidated by these acts". He also said, "We will respond proportionally and we will respond in a place and time and manner that we choose." In response to President Obama's statement, Sony Entertainment's CEO Michael Lynton said on the CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
program ''Anderson Cooper 360
Anderson or Andersson may refer to:
Companies
* Anderson (Carriage), a company that manufactured automobiles from 1907 to 1910
* Anderson Electric, an early 20th-century electric car
* Anderson Greenwood, an industrial manufacturer
* Anderson R ...
'' that the public, the press and the President misunderstood the events. Lynton said the decision to cancel the wide release was in response to a majority of theaters pulling their showings and not to the hackers' threats. Lynton stated that they would seek other options to distribute the film in the future, and noted "We have not given in. And we have not backed down. We have always had every desire to have the American public see this movie."
On December 23, Sony opted to authorize approximately 300 mostly-independent theaters to show ''The Interview'' on Christmas Day, as the four major theater chains had yet to change their earlier decision not to show the film.["''The Interview'': Obama hails move to screen North Korea film."]
''BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
''. Retrieved December 24, 2014. The FBI worked with these theaters to detail the specifics of the prior threats and how to manage security for the showings, but noted that there was no actionable intelligence on the prior threats. Sony's Lynton stated on the announcement that "we are proud to make it available to the public and to have stood up to those who attempted to suppress free speech". ''The Interview'' was also released to
on December 24. No incidents predicated by the threats occurred with the release, and instead, the unorthodox release of the film led to it being considered a success due to increased interest in the film following the attention it had received.
On December 27, the North Korean
released a statement accusing Obama of being "the chief culprit who forced the Sony Pictures Entertainment to indiscriminately distribute the movie."
U.S. accusations and formal charges against North Korea
U.S. government officials stated on December 17, 2014 their belief that the North Korean government was "centrally involved" in the hacking, although there was initially some debate within the White House whether or not to make this finding public.
White House officials treated the situation as a "serious national security matter", and the
(FBI) formally stated on December 19 that they connected the North Korean government to the cyber-attacks. Including undisclosed evidence, these claims were made based on the use of similar
hacking tools and techniques previously employed by North Korean hackers—including North Korea's cyberwarfare agency
on South Korean targets.