Brad Pitt filled in for his wife, Angelina Jolie, along with three of their six children at the Los Angeles premiere of "Unbroken" Monday .
Reported by NY Daily News 4 hours ago.
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Brad Pitt, kids fills in for Angelina Jolie at premiere
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Brad Pitt, kids fill in for Angelina Jolie at premiere
Brad Pitt filled in for his wife, Angelina Jolie, along with three of their six children at the Los Angeles premiere of "Unbroken" Monday .
Reported by NY Daily News 1 hour ago.
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Brad Pitt Brings The Kids To 'Unbroken' Premiere While Angelina Sits Out With Chicken Pox
With Angelina Jolie at home likely trying to resist the urge to scratch her chicken pox, Brad Pitt and several members of the Jolie-Pitt brood attended the Los Angeles premiere of "Unbroken" in the director's absence.Monday night was a formal family affair for Maddox, 13, Pax, 11, and Shiloh, 8, who suited up for the occasion. Also in attendance were the actor's parents, Jane and William Pitt.
In an interview with E! News, Jolie explained that she wanted her children to see "Unbroken" despite its mature subject matter.
"It's [rated] PG-13. My boys -- one is 13, one is 11 but he's a mature 11 -- will see it, but I think I might actually show my younger children. I think they could handle it because they understand film," she explained. "They know the difference of what is real and what isn't, because it's heavy for [kids] under 13. But they all knew Louis [Zamperini]. They want to see it because it's Louis."
"Unbroken" tells the story of Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic athlete who fought in World War ll and, after surviving a plane crash, spent 47 days drifting on a raft before he was captured by Japanese forces. Reported by PopEater 4 hours ago.
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Brangelina’s Kids All Grown Up During Rare Red Carpet Appearance
All eyes were on Brangelina’s kids during the Unbroken premiere in Los Angeles Monday night. Shiloh, Maddox, and Pax graced the red carpet with their famous father as mother Angelina Jolie stayed home after coming down with a case of the chicken pox. This appearance comes as a rare one... Read MoreThe post Brangelina’s Kids All Grown Up During Rare Red Carpet Appearance appeared first on RumorFix. Reported by Rumorfix 3 hours ago.
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Brad Pitt and Kids Fill In for Sick Angelina Jolie at ‘Unbroken’ Los Angeles Premiere
No Angie, no problem. Monday night was family night for Brad Pitt, who continued to cover for Angelina Jolie at an Unbroken event. The 50-year-old actor brought daughter Shiloh and sons Maddox and Pax, who all suited up and wore ties for film’s Hollywood premiere. Papa Pitt was also joined by his own parents Jane...Read more»
Reported by Celebuzz 3 hours ago.
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Pitt fills in for 'scratchy' Jolie at 'Unbroken' premiere
Brad Pitt and children filled in for Angelina Jolie at Monday's 'Unbroken' premiere.
Reported by USATODAY.com 2 hours ago.
Reported by USATODAY.com 2 hours ago.
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Brad Pitt, Maddox, Pax, and Shiloh represent Angelina Jolie at Unbroken premiere
As expected, Brad Pitt represented Brange on his own last night at the Hollywood premiere of Unbroken because of the Jolie’s chicken pox. His parents were there. And also three of their six children – Maddox, Pax, and the Chosen One Shiloh. It’s Brad’s birthday on Thur...
Reported by Lainey Gossip 3 hours ago.
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Jennifer Aniston continues to push for Oscar nomination in New York
It was supposed to be one of those nights. On the West Coast, Angelina Jolie was supposed to be lighting up Hollywood at the Unbroken premiere, with Brad Pitt’s hand on her ass, surrounded by their children – the ultimate celebrity family portrait – while on the East Coast, Jenn...
Reported by Lainey Gossip 2 hours ago.
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Brad Pitt and Kids Step in for Angelina Jolie at Unbroken Premiere
Pitt says his wife, who has the chicken pox, is "doing great"
Reported by People Magazine 1 hour ago.
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My Conversation With Angelina Jolie
Tonight I'm joined by Academy Award-winning actress and director, Angelina Jolie. Her film, Unbroken which tells the real life story of Olympian Louis Zamperini's heroic struggle to stay alive during his captivity as a POW during World War Two, opens on Christmas Day.In the clip below I ask Angelina, who has been honored for her work as a humanitarian, why she is drawn to depictions of the dehumanization of war. Both Unbroken and her first directorial effort, In the Land of Blood and Honey, deal with the human cost of war.
For more of our conversation, be sure to tune in to Tavis Smiley on PBS. Check our website for your local TV listings: www.pbs.org/tavis.
Follow Tavis Smiley on Twitter @tavissmiley Reported by PopEater 20 minutes ago.
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WATCH: Brad Pitt Attends The Unbroken Premiere For A Sick Angelina Jolie With Kids Maddox, Pax & Shiloh
*Angelina Jolie* couldn’t make it to the premiere of her new flick Unbroken, so the next best thing stepped in!
*Brad Pitt* attended the movie’s Los Angeles premiere on Dec. 15 for his wife who was at home recovering … Reported by OK! Magazine 1 hour ago.
*Brad Pitt* attended the movie’s Los Angeles premiere on Dec. 15 for his wife who was at home recovering … Reported by OK! Magazine 1 hour ago.
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Sony Hack Attack: 11 Newest Developments
It’s been over three weeks since Sony Pictures Entertainment was first paralyzed by a cyber attack from a group of hackers calling itself Guardians of Peace, and the damage is far from over.
So many private conversations and internal documents are coming to the surface every day as the media continues to comb through what the hackers are releasing, it’s hard to keep up with the news.
*Also Read:* Amy Pascal on Whether She’s So Damaged She Can No Longer Lead Sony (Exclusive)
Before more revelations inevitably hit your newsfeed, here’s 111 of the latest developments from Sony’s disastrous hack attack.
*1. Sony’s stock is tumbling.
*The company’s stock has plunged more than 10 percent since the beginning of last week in a general downturn for global markets and Japanese stocks. Coincidence? Or is the cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment is rattling investors?
Still, shares are up nearly 15 percent in 2014, overall, thanks to the PlayStation 4 gaming console and image sensors for smartphones and tablets.
*2. Channing Tatum wants to star in a “Ghostbusters” movie alongside Chris Pratt.
*“Let us show the world The DarkSide and let us fight it with all the glory and epicness of a HUGE BATMAN BEGINS MOVIE. I know we can make this a huge franchise. Fun adventure craziness. COME OONNNN!!!” Tatum wrote co-chair Amy Pascal on August 21.
The Daily Beast also found another email, written by Columbia Pictures co-president of production Hannah Minghella, revealing that Tatum and producing partner Reid Carolin “have been brainstorming ideas” with “Captain America: Winter Soldier” directors Joe and Anthony Russo, who would like Paul Feig to take on the project on top of his all-female “Ghostbusters” reboot. Sony executives reply to the email with a lot of interest, while Pascal simply responds, “fuckkk.”
*Also Read:* Paul Feig’s All-Female ‘Ghostbusters’ Reboot Will Be ‘Really Scary’
*3. Paul Feig wants Peter Dinklage to play the “Ghostbusters” villain.
*Vulture reports that if the “Game of Thrones” star isn’t too busy, he can play a convicted murderer who turns into a ghost after his execution is hit by “a supercharged electrical storm.” The site quote’s emails in which Feig says it’s up to “four very different women” to stop Dinklage from raising an army of other ghosts, which could be made up of famous villains throughout history.
*4. Paul Feig wants “Saturday Night Live” star Cecily Strong to play a major part in “Ghostbusters.”
*Unfortunately for Strong, she won’t be wearing a proton pack, but if Feig has his way, her role could be potentially hilarious.
Vulture reported that Feig wants Strong to play the Ghostbusters bureaucratic nemesis, who is “always saying terrible things about them in press conferences and then apologizing to them behind the scenes.”
*Also Read:* Sony Hackers Stole Script of Next James Bond Movie ‘Spectre’
*5. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s “The Interview” did not impress Sony executives abroad.
*Particularly UK Sony Pictures executive Peter Taylor, who told the president of Sony Pictures Releasing International, Steven O’Dell, that the “desperately unfunny and repetitive” comedy is a “misfire.”
Defamer obtained the email, in which Taylor adds: “James Franco proves once again that irritation is his strong suit, which is a shame, because the character could have been appealing and funny out of his hands.”
*Also Read:* NYT Expose: Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai Toned Down Assassination of Kim Jong-Un in ‘The Interview’
*6. “The Interview” stars Seth Rogen and James Franco think “it’s f–ked up” that the media is reporting on the leaked emails.
*“It’s stolen information,” Rogen told Howard Stern on Monday. “I think it’s fucked up that anyone is talking about it. And I’m OK talking about my shit, honestly, because I don’t fucking care that much and the stuff that was stolen from me on the grand scale of shit is not that bad, but it’s fucking stolen.”
Rogen added: “It’s stolen information that media outlets are directly profiting from. It’s ill-gotten gains, I would assume. They’re literally reselling stolen shit. It’s not like they’re not profiting from it. It’s click bait.”
*7. Aaron Sorkin does, too.
*The “Newsroom” creator made his opinion abundantly clear in a New York Times op-ed calling “every news outlet that did the bidding of” hacker group Guardians of the Peace “morally treasonous and spectacularly dishonorable.”
Sorking wrote: “Do the emails contain any information about Sony breaking the law? No. Misleading the public? No. Acting in direct harm to customers, the way the tobacco companies or Enron did? No. Is there even one sentence in one private email that was stolen that even hints at wrongdoing of any kind? Anything that can help, inform or protect anyone?”
*Also Read:* ‘Newsroom’ Writer Says Aaron Sorkin Kicked Her Out of Meeting for Questioning Campus Rape Story
*8. But Bloomberg TV’s John Heilemann, and a number of other media professionals don’t.
*“There are a lot of things that have been reported that would have been considered news if they had been found in another way,” Heilemann — a political journalist and co-author of “Game Change” — said on Bloomberg’s “All Due Respect.”
TheWrap surveyed multiple journalists and lawyers Monday to explore whether the media should be publishing and covering the content of the leaks. The majority came down on the side of the media, seeing publishing the hacks as a service for the public.
*Also Read:* Sony Demands Media Stop Posting Data Leaked by Hackers
*9. Right or wrong, Sony wants the media to stop.
*Sony Pictures Entertainment lawyer David Boies sent media outlets, including TheWrap, a letter this week asking for the supervised destruction of all “stolen information,” like confidential documents, email threads and financial figures obtained by the hackers and leaked in waves since late November.
*10. Hollywood executives around town are taking precautionary procedures to make sure they aren’t the next victims of a cyber attack.
*TheWrap reported on Monday that executives around town are so panicked, that they’re putting down their smart phones, logging out of their email and picking up a telephone to do business the old-fashioned way, instead.
Sony has resorted to using fax machines again, billing by hand and taking advantage of the U.S. postal service to send mail.
One executive said that he has gone through prior email exchanges with Sony, simply scanning for any personal data he may have sent.
“Truthfully, I haven’t had to send an email in a while, and I’m relieved,” he told TheWrap. “It’s frightening to think you could have information floating out there, wondering if it’s worth being leaked.”
*Also Read:* Sony’s Crackle Postpones James Caan, Kevin Dillon Hacker Movie ‘The Throwaways’ Due to Its Cyber Attack (Exclusive)
*11. Oprah Winfrey does not think the world should judge Amy Pascal and producer Scott Rudin, or any other Sony employee, for “private conversations” illegally put on display.
*Pascal and Rudin may have been caught making racially insensitive remarks about President Barack Obama, but Winfrey isn’t holding it against them.
“I would hope that we would not stand in such harsh judgement of a moment in time where somebody was hacked and their private conversations were put before the world,” she told CNN’s Don Lemon when asked about the Sony hacks.
The “Selma” producer then gave some advice that she recognizes is sometimes easier said than done.
“I try and write everything as though it’s gonna show up in the New York Times,” Winfrey said. “But there are things you say in your private conversations with your friends and your colleagues that you would not want to be broadcast on CNN.”
Email
** 11 Hollywood Hacker Movies: From an Angelina Jolie Stinker to a Potential Oscar Winner (Video) **
·
Previous ; Next
1 of 1
Sony is reeling from being hacked, but Hollywood has been producing stories around cyber crime for years. Here are 11 of the most memorable.
*Related stories from TheWrap:*
Should Sony Pictures Pull 'The Interview'?
What If the Cyber Attacks Against Sony Don't Stop? A Big Media Nightmare (Guest Blog)
Seth Rogen on 'The Interview' Fallout: 'We Just Wanted to Make a Really Funny, Entertaining Movie' (Video) Reported by The Wrap 25 minutes ago.
So many private conversations and internal documents are coming to the surface every day as the media continues to comb through what the hackers are releasing, it’s hard to keep up with the news.
*Also Read:* Amy Pascal on Whether She’s So Damaged She Can No Longer Lead Sony (Exclusive)
Before more revelations inevitably hit your newsfeed, here’s 111 of the latest developments from Sony’s disastrous hack attack.
*1. Sony’s stock is tumbling.
*The company’s stock has plunged more than 10 percent since the beginning of last week in a general downturn for global markets and Japanese stocks. Coincidence? Or is the cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment is rattling investors?
Still, shares are up nearly 15 percent in 2014, overall, thanks to the PlayStation 4 gaming console and image sensors for smartphones and tablets.
*2. Channing Tatum wants to star in a “Ghostbusters” movie alongside Chris Pratt.
*“Let us show the world The DarkSide and let us fight it with all the glory and epicness of a HUGE BATMAN BEGINS MOVIE. I know we can make this a huge franchise. Fun adventure craziness. COME OONNNN!!!” Tatum wrote co-chair Amy Pascal on August 21.
The Daily Beast also found another email, written by Columbia Pictures co-president of production Hannah Minghella, revealing that Tatum and producing partner Reid Carolin “have been brainstorming ideas” with “Captain America: Winter Soldier” directors Joe and Anthony Russo, who would like Paul Feig to take on the project on top of his all-female “Ghostbusters” reboot. Sony executives reply to the email with a lot of interest, while Pascal simply responds, “fuckkk.”
*Also Read:* Paul Feig’s All-Female ‘Ghostbusters’ Reboot Will Be ‘Really Scary’
*3. Paul Feig wants Peter Dinklage to play the “Ghostbusters” villain.
*Vulture reports that if the “Game of Thrones” star isn’t too busy, he can play a convicted murderer who turns into a ghost after his execution is hit by “a supercharged electrical storm.” The site quote’s emails in which Feig says it’s up to “four very different women” to stop Dinklage from raising an army of other ghosts, which could be made up of famous villains throughout history.
*4. Paul Feig wants “Saturday Night Live” star Cecily Strong to play a major part in “Ghostbusters.”
*Unfortunately for Strong, she won’t be wearing a proton pack, but if Feig has his way, her role could be potentially hilarious.
Vulture reported that Feig wants Strong to play the Ghostbusters bureaucratic nemesis, who is “always saying terrible things about them in press conferences and then apologizing to them behind the scenes.”
*Also Read:* Sony Hackers Stole Script of Next James Bond Movie ‘Spectre’
*5. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s “The Interview” did not impress Sony executives abroad.
*Particularly UK Sony Pictures executive Peter Taylor, who told the president of Sony Pictures Releasing International, Steven O’Dell, that the “desperately unfunny and repetitive” comedy is a “misfire.”
Defamer obtained the email, in which Taylor adds: “James Franco proves once again that irritation is his strong suit, which is a shame, because the character could have been appealing and funny out of his hands.”
*Also Read:* NYT Expose: Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai Toned Down Assassination of Kim Jong-Un in ‘The Interview’
*6. “The Interview” stars Seth Rogen and James Franco think “it’s f–ked up” that the media is reporting on the leaked emails.
*“It’s stolen information,” Rogen told Howard Stern on Monday. “I think it’s fucked up that anyone is talking about it. And I’m OK talking about my shit, honestly, because I don’t fucking care that much and the stuff that was stolen from me on the grand scale of shit is not that bad, but it’s fucking stolen.”
Rogen added: “It’s stolen information that media outlets are directly profiting from. It’s ill-gotten gains, I would assume. They’re literally reselling stolen shit. It’s not like they’re not profiting from it. It’s click bait.”
*7. Aaron Sorkin does, too.
*The “Newsroom” creator made his opinion abundantly clear in a New York Times op-ed calling “every news outlet that did the bidding of” hacker group Guardians of the Peace “morally treasonous and spectacularly dishonorable.”
Sorking wrote: “Do the emails contain any information about Sony breaking the law? No. Misleading the public? No. Acting in direct harm to customers, the way the tobacco companies or Enron did? No. Is there even one sentence in one private email that was stolen that even hints at wrongdoing of any kind? Anything that can help, inform or protect anyone?”
*Also Read:* ‘Newsroom’ Writer Says Aaron Sorkin Kicked Her Out of Meeting for Questioning Campus Rape Story
*8. But Bloomberg TV’s John Heilemann, and a number of other media professionals don’t.
*“There are a lot of things that have been reported that would have been considered news if they had been found in another way,” Heilemann — a political journalist and co-author of “Game Change” — said on Bloomberg’s “All Due Respect.”
TheWrap surveyed multiple journalists and lawyers Monday to explore whether the media should be publishing and covering the content of the leaks. The majority came down on the side of the media, seeing publishing the hacks as a service for the public.
*Also Read:* Sony Demands Media Stop Posting Data Leaked by Hackers
*9. Right or wrong, Sony wants the media to stop.
*Sony Pictures Entertainment lawyer David Boies sent media outlets, including TheWrap, a letter this week asking for the supervised destruction of all “stolen information,” like confidential documents, email threads and financial figures obtained by the hackers and leaked in waves since late November.
*10. Hollywood executives around town are taking precautionary procedures to make sure they aren’t the next victims of a cyber attack.
*TheWrap reported on Monday that executives around town are so panicked, that they’re putting down their smart phones, logging out of their email and picking up a telephone to do business the old-fashioned way, instead.
Sony has resorted to using fax machines again, billing by hand and taking advantage of the U.S. postal service to send mail.
One executive said that he has gone through prior email exchanges with Sony, simply scanning for any personal data he may have sent.
“Truthfully, I haven’t had to send an email in a while, and I’m relieved,” he told TheWrap. “It’s frightening to think you could have information floating out there, wondering if it’s worth being leaked.”
*Also Read:* Sony’s Crackle Postpones James Caan, Kevin Dillon Hacker Movie ‘The Throwaways’ Due to Its Cyber Attack (Exclusive)
*11. Oprah Winfrey does not think the world should judge Amy Pascal and producer Scott Rudin, or any other Sony employee, for “private conversations” illegally put on display.
*Pascal and Rudin may have been caught making racially insensitive remarks about President Barack Obama, but Winfrey isn’t holding it against them.
“I would hope that we would not stand in such harsh judgement of a moment in time where somebody was hacked and their private conversations were put before the world,” she told CNN’s Don Lemon when asked about the Sony hacks.
The “Selma” producer then gave some advice that she recognizes is sometimes easier said than done.
“I try and write everything as though it’s gonna show up in the New York Times,” Winfrey said. “But there are things you say in your private conversations with your friends and your colleagues that you would not want to be broadcast on CNN.”
** 11 Hollywood Hacker Movies: From an Angelina Jolie Stinker to a Potential Oscar Winner (Video) **
·
Previous ; Next
1 of 1
Sony is reeling from being hacked, but Hollywood has been producing stories around cyber crime for years. Here are 11 of the most memorable.
*Related stories from TheWrap:*
Should Sony Pictures Pull 'The Interview'?
What If the Cyber Attacks Against Sony Don't Stop? A Big Media Nightmare (Guest Blog)
Seth Rogen on 'The Interview' Fallout: 'We Just Wanted to Make a Really Funny, Entertaining Movie' (Video) Reported by The Wrap 25 minutes ago.
↧
Brad Pitt and kids attend "Unbroken" premiere
Family steps out for Angelina Jolie's new movie while she continues to recover from the chickenpox
Reported by CBS News 40 minutes ago.
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Angelina Jolie Has a Cyber-Security Team Monitoring Her Kids’ Internet Use
Reported by TIME 18 hours ago.
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Angelina Jolie Recruits Cyber Security Team to Monitor Her Kids Online
The 'Unbroken' director and producer, who doesn't use social media including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, describes herself as an 'old-school' when it comes to technology.
Reported by AceShowbiz 18 hours ago.
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Angelina Jolie And Brad Pitt Hired Cyber Security Team For Kids
Reported by ContactMusic 13 hours ago.
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Sony Pictures to receive “Christmas gift” of secrets from hackers
*Wade Sims for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online*
Sony Pictures might be getting a fat lump of coal in its stocking this Christmas as penance for poor security practices and for foisting so many Adam Sandler films upon the population. Hacked by a group calling themselves the Guardians of Peace, Sony has been reeling in recent weeks from the worst data breach in corporate history. The hackers stole the entire contents of Sony Pictures – some 100 terabytes of information – and have dumped about 200 gigabytes of that cache to online file-sharing hubs. Included in the hack were five previously unreleased Sony films including the upcoming Annie and To Write Love on her Arms, as well as salary information for Sony personnel, sensitive e-mails from executives, and private medical information about several employees.
Now, the hackers in their latest disclosure have threatened that the worst is yet to come. “We are preparing for you a Christmas gift,” the file stated. “The gift will be larger quantities of data. And it will be more interesting. The gift will surely give you much more pleasure and put Sony Pictures into the worst state.” The claims come following extortion demands revealed in a data dump of emails sent to Sony executives three days before the breach went public, wherein the hackers demand “monetary compensation we want.”
The proprietary information already leaked, which ranges from boring to damning, has cast Sony in an uncomfortable and very public light – one none too flattering to the corporation, whose shares have fallen nearly ten percent since the data was released. For example, an e-mail seized early by information purveyors and spread to news sites states:“There is a general ‘blah-ness’ to the films we produce. Although we manage to produce an innovative film once in awhile [sic], Social Network, Moneyball, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, we continue to be saddled with the mundane, formulaic Adam Sandler films.”Later discoveries were less maudlin. An e-mail exchange between Scott Rudin and Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal surfaced, wherein the former called actress Angelina Jolie “a minimally talented spoiled brat.” In another communiqué, Pascal and Rudin made some casually racist comments to one another about President Barack Obama’s likely taste in movies, for which both publicly apologized. A summary of top executive salaries showed that just one woman on payroll – Pascal – earned over $1 million.
Other documents leaked include, according to Bloomberg, detailed and identifiable medical records of employees with extremely personal information. For example, one memo from an HR executive about denied medical claims disclosed details about an employee’s child with special needs, including the diagnosis and type of treatment the child was receiving. Other documents identifiably documented employees who had premature births, cancer, kidney failure, and alcoholic liver cirrhosis. Still others detail sexual harassment claims, unreleased movie scripts, expense reports, and celebrity aliases.
Sony’s subsidiaries have been favorite targets for hackers following the 2005 Sony BMG rootkit scandal in which Sony BMG, in an effort to curb CD piracy, had secretly placed illegal and harmful self-installing copy protection software that spied on users and in some cases disabled their computers. In 2011, Sony’s PlayStation Network was hacked, bringing down the gaming service for 23 days and revealing 77 million accounts details and passwords, which Sony had failed to encrypt.
Sony Pictures may be a favorite victim for hackers, but Big Sony’s persistence on bad security practices hasn’t been doing its subsidiary companies any favors. One release contained thousands of passwords for employees stored on the server in plaintext, without any encryption. Worse yet, the passwords were often stored in conveniently grouped Word documents, folders, and spreadsheets donning innocuous titles, like “Master_Password_Sheet” and “Password.”
For those who aren’t intimately familiar with security technobabble like SHA1 and hash salting, and especially for those whose passwords is “password,” let me put this into perspective using something more understandable, like food.
Imagine cooking a succulent, delicious, seven-course Christmas dinner for the whole family (passwords). Also imagine that you also have several large, underfed, and poorly behaved dogs roaming the neighborhood (hackers). Rather than going to the effort of putting everything in the fridge (secure database) where you’ll have to go through all of the effort of opening and closing the door (encrypting/decrypting), you decide to leave the food out on the table (company servers), wafting delicious turkey odors throughout the house and through the screen door that surely no dog will ever manage to claw its way through.
Particularly embarrassing for Sony is the fact that the hack and failure to secure passwords came after Phil Reitinger, a military-grade security executive who once served as Deputy Under Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security’s National Protection and Programs Directorate, left his DHS job to join Sony as their chief information security officer in 2011 only months after the debilitating PlayStation Network hack.
Over 1,600 physical and virtual Linux and Unix servers and 811 Windows servers were compromised, Ars Technica reports, as well as a spreadsheet leaking the location, IP address, MAC address, computer name, and user name of nearly 10,000 personal computers in North America on Sony Pictures’ network. Additionally, hackers were able to obtain a copy of Sony Corporation’s CA 2 “root” certificate which may have been used as a Trojan horse to authenticate the malware that opened the server to attack by the hackers.
For its part, Sony Pictures has refused to take this hack sitting down. In addition to working with the FBI to find the hackers, Sony has taken more aggressive measures including reportedly seeded file-sharing torrents with fake files that look like the stolen documents to confuse would-be pirates into downloading the wrong file. By matching the MD5 checksum of the illicit file-shares and spoofing authentication servers that guarantee the files as genuine, Sony allegedly was able to surreptitiously insert tons of fake files into the torrent gray market, confusing customers. Additionally, because the file sizes are so large, downloads can take hours or even days. Therefore, if the downloader grabbed a fake Sony-hosted file rather than the real documents, he’d be left with a block of useless data – like wrestling to open a package of potato chips only to find that the bag really contained Brussel sprouts.
Sony has also taken the slightly more controversial step of sending “cease and desist” letters to media outlets over broadcasting information about the breach. Claiming that the leaked documents contained “stolen information,” Sony demanded news agencies to avoid publishing information about the leaks or to destroy any information already obtained. Although the letter, written by attorney David Boies, falls short of explicitly threatening legal action, the letter does state that for media outlets that refuse to comply that Sony “will have no choice but to hold you [the media company] responsible for any damage or loss arising from such use or dissemination.”
Meanwhile, the FBI continues to investigate the hack and track down the true source of the hack. Although initial speculation implicated North Korea’s cyber warfare division, known as Unit 121, as the source of the attack in retaliation to Sony’s upcoming film The Interview, in which actors Seth Rogen and James Franco attempt to assassinate Kim Jong-un, the FBI has stated that “[t]here is no attribution to North Korea at this point.”
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*Follow redOrbit on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.* Reported by redOrbit 4 hours ago.
Sony Pictures might be getting a fat lump of coal in its stocking this Christmas as penance for poor security practices and for foisting so many Adam Sandler films upon the population. Hacked by a group calling themselves the Guardians of Peace, Sony has been reeling in recent weeks from the worst data breach in corporate history. The hackers stole the entire contents of Sony Pictures – some 100 terabytes of information – and have dumped about 200 gigabytes of that cache to online file-sharing hubs. Included in the hack were five previously unreleased Sony films including the upcoming Annie and To Write Love on her Arms, as well as salary information for Sony personnel, sensitive e-mails from executives, and private medical information about several employees.
Now, the hackers in their latest disclosure have threatened that the worst is yet to come. “We are preparing for you a Christmas gift,” the file stated. “The gift will be larger quantities of data. And it will be more interesting. The gift will surely give you much more pleasure and put Sony Pictures into the worst state.” The claims come following extortion demands revealed in a data dump of emails sent to Sony executives three days before the breach went public, wherein the hackers demand “monetary compensation we want.”
The proprietary information already leaked, which ranges from boring to damning, has cast Sony in an uncomfortable and very public light – one none too flattering to the corporation, whose shares have fallen nearly ten percent since the data was released. For example, an e-mail seized early by information purveyors and spread to news sites states:“There is a general ‘blah-ness’ to the films we produce. Although we manage to produce an innovative film once in awhile [sic], Social Network, Moneyball, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, we continue to be saddled with the mundane, formulaic Adam Sandler films.”Later discoveries were less maudlin. An e-mail exchange between Scott Rudin and Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal surfaced, wherein the former called actress Angelina Jolie “a minimally talented spoiled brat.” In another communiqué, Pascal and Rudin made some casually racist comments to one another about President Barack Obama’s likely taste in movies, for which both publicly apologized. A summary of top executive salaries showed that just one woman on payroll – Pascal – earned over $1 million.
Other documents leaked include, according to Bloomberg, detailed and identifiable medical records of employees with extremely personal information. For example, one memo from an HR executive about denied medical claims disclosed details about an employee’s child with special needs, including the diagnosis and type of treatment the child was receiving. Other documents identifiably documented employees who had premature births, cancer, kidney failure, and alcoholic liver cirrhosis. Still others detail sexual harassment claims, unreleased movie scripts, expense reports, and celebrity aliases.
Sony’s subsidiaries have been favorite targets for hackers following the 2005 Sony BMG rootkit scandal in which Sony BMG, in an effort to curb CD piracy, had secretly placed illegal and harmful self-installing copy protection software that spied on users and in some cases disabled their computers. In 2011, Sony’s PlayStation Network was hacked, bringing down the gaming service for 23 days and revealing 77 million accounts details and passwords, which Sony had failed to encrypt.
Sony Pictures may be a favorite victim for hackers, but Big Sony’s persistence on bad security practices hasn’t been doing its subsidiary companies any favors. One release contained thousands of passwords for employees stored on the server in plaintext, without any encryption. Worse yet, the passwords were often stored in conveniently grouped Word documents, folders, and spreadsheets donning innocuous titles, like “Master_Password_Sheet” and “Password.”
For those who aren’t intimately familiar with security technobabble like SHA1 and hash salting, and especially for those whose passwords is “password,” let me put this into perspective using something more understandable, like food.
Imagine cooking a succulent, delicious, seven-course Christmas dinner for the whole family (passwords). Also imagine that you also have several large, underfed, and poorly behaved dogs roaming the neighborhood (hackers). Rather than going to the effort of putting everything in the fridge (secure database) where you’ll have to go through all of the effort of opening and closing the door (encrypting/decrypting), you decide to leave the food out on the table (company servers), wafting delicious turkey odors throughout the house and through the screen door that surely no dog will ever manage to claw its way through.
Particularly embarrassing for Sony is the fact that the hack and failure to secure passwords came after Phil Reitinger, a military-grade security executive who once served as Deputy Under Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security’s National Protection and Programs Directorate, left his DHS job to join Sony as their chief information security officer in 2011 only months after the debilitating PlayStation Network hack.
Over 1,600 physical and virtual Linux and Unix servers and 811 Windows servers were compromised, Ars Technica reports, as well as a spreadsheet leaking the location, IP address, MAC address, computer name, and user name of nearly 10,000 personal computers in North America on Sony Pictures’ network. Additionally, hackers were able to obtain a copy of Sony Corporation’s CA 2 “root” certificate which may have been used as a Trojan horse to authenticate the malware that opened the server to attack by the hackers.
For its part, Sony Pictures has refused to take this hack sitting down. In addition to working with the FBI to find the hackers, Sony has taken more aggressive measures including reportedly seeded file-sharing torrents with fake files that look like the stolen documents to confuse would-be pirates into downloading the wrong file. By matching the MD5 checksum of the illicit file-shares and spoofing authentication servers that guarantee the files as genuine, Sony allegedly was able to surreptitiously insert tons of fake files into the torrent gray market, confusing customers. Additionally, because the file sizes are so large, downloads can take hours or even days. Therefore, if the downloader grabbed a fake Sony-hosted file rather than the real documents, he’d be left with a block of useless data – like wrestling to open a package of potato chips only to find that the bag really contained Brussel sprouts.
Sony has also taken the slightly more controversial step of sending “cease and desist” letters to media outlets over broadcasting information about the breach. Claiming that the leaked documents contained “stolen information,” Sony demanded news agencies to avoid publishing information about the leaks or to destroy any information already obtained. Although the letter, written by attorney David Boies, falls short of explicitly threatening legal action, the letter does state that for media outlets that refuse to comply that Sony “will have no choice but to hold you [the media company] responsible for any damage or loss arising from such use or dissemination.”
Meanwhile, the FBI continues to investigate the hack and track down the true source of the hack. Although initial speculation implicated North Korea’s cyber warfare division, known as Unit 121, as the source of the attack in retaliation to Sony’s upcoming film The Interview, in which actors Seth Rogen and James Franco attempt to assassinate Kim Jong-un, the FBI has stated that “[t]here is no attribution to North Korea at this point.”
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*Follow redOrbit on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.* Reported by redOrbit 4 hours ago.
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By:
Susan Jones
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read more Reported by CNSNews.com 5 hours ago.
Susan Jones
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read more Reported by CNSNews.com 5 hours ago.
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