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Sony’s New Movies Leak Online Following Hack Attack : Brad Pitt’s ‘Fury,’ ‘Annie’ among titles being downloaded
After the hack attack that crippled Sony Pictures corporate network, it now payback time for hackers. They are cashing on the stolen data and circulating the movies they allegedly stole from Sony Pictures. Reports indicate that at least five new movies from Sony Pictures are being shared on copyright-infringing file-sharing hubs and via torrents online in the wake of the hack attack .
Sony Pictures corporate network was hacked on 24th November by a lesser known hacker group called Guardians of Peace. The hackers left a image of a skeleton on company computers with a message that said, “Hacked by #GOP.” At that time the #GOP had threatened to release “secrets and top secrets” of the company.
The Interview connection to hack attack
Though officially nothing is proven or said, Sony seems to be blaming North Koreans for the hack attack. Sony Pictures and North Korea are in dispute over a film called The Interview starring Seth Rogen and James Franco. The hack attack on Sony Pictures happened exactly a month Sony is to release The Interview. In this comedy film, two journalists, played by Seth and Franco, are recruited by the CIA to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The Pyongyang government denounced the film publically, calling it “undisguised sponsoring of terrorism, as well as an act of war” in a letter to United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon in June.
FireEye’s Mandiant hired by Sony
Sony Pictures has meanwhile hired Mandiant to look into the hack attack and clean up any backdoor that the hackers may have left on its systems. FireEye’s Mandiant forensic team, in conjunction with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), is assisting with the aftermath and subsequent investigation the security breach, according to Reuters.
Mandiant and FBI will also be investigating the connection between upcoming Sony movie “The Interview,” and North Korea.
“Fury”, “Annie”, “Still Alice”, “Mr.Turner” and “To Write Love on Her Arms” leaked online
The hack attack may also cost Sony Pictures heavily in terms of revenue from its future releases. As of now pirated copies of DVD screeners of four unreleased Sony movies including the upcoming “Annie” are shared through video sharing sites and torrents.
But the icing on the cake as far as movie buffs are concerned it “Fury.” Fury is a war pic which is still running in USA and to be released in many other countries. Fury is a 2014 American war drama film set during World War II that was written and directed by David Ayer. The film stars top Hollywood cast like Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, Shia LaBeouf, Michael Pena, and Jon Bernthal.
Reports indicate that, at the time of writing this article “Fury” now has been downloaded via piracy sites more than 1.2 million times, while “Annie” has topped 206,000 downloads by unique IP addresses, according to Excipio. Downloads of “Still Alice” stood at 103,832, followed by “Mr. Turner” at 63,379 and “To Write Love on Her Arms” at 19,946.
The above figures are for direct download. Torrent sites are also seeding and sharing the films and are in the top torrent downloads billboard.
Sony’s response
Sony acknowledged the computer outage in a statement on Tuesday. Emails to Sony were bouncing back on Saturday with a message asking senders to contact employees by telephone because its email system was “experiencing a disruption”. Meanwhile the employees of Sony Pictures are reported working with pen and paper as the entire corporate system has been shut down due to investigations. Regarding the piracy of its premier movies, Sony said in a statement to Variety that,
“The theft of Sony Pictures Entertainment content is a criminal matter, and we are working closely with law enforcement to address it.”
