By now, I am sure that you have heard about Sony Pictures being hacked by an unknown person or persons, now thought to have been sponsored by the North Koreans. In response to the hacking, Sony Pictures cancelled the Theatrical Release of “The Interview”, the movie which supposedly caused all this mess.
Many in Hollywood have voiced their displeasure with Sony Pictures, including actor Rob Lowe.
Wow. Everyone caved. The hackers won. An utter and complete victory for them. Wow.
— Rob Lowe (@RobLowe) December 17, 2014
Saw @Sethrogen at JFK. Both of us have never seen or heard of anything like this. Hollywood has done Neville Chamberlain proud today.— Rob Lowe (@RobLowe) December 17, 2014
Fox News reports that
Sony’s shock decision to scrap the Dec. 25 release of its controversial movie “The Interview” will strengthen hackers, experts warn, fueling debilitating cyberattacks on other high-profile firms.
Still reeling from a crippling Nov. 24 hack, Sony Pictures Entertainment announced Wednesday that it had canceled “The Interview’s” Christmas Day release after a number of movie chains said that they would not show the film. “The Interview,” which pokes fun at North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, is believed to have prompted last month’s devastating attack on the studio and subsequent threats to movie theaters.
The FBI has connected Pyongyang to the cyberattack, a federal law enforcement source told Fox News Wednesday.
Experts warn that Sony’s decision could spur politically motivated hackers to launch even more ambitious assaults against corporations and governments.
“Capitulation to cyber extortion will incentivize other actors to achieve political gains via cyber intrusions and threats,” Sean Doherty, president of security firm TSC Advantage, told FoxNews.com, in an email. “This situation is not dissimilar to what we’ve seen with kidnapping situations, where paying ransoms to terrorists and criminal actors has increased the threat to potential victims.”
Nir Polak, CEO of big data security company Exabeam, agrees. “Sony’s capitulation to these government-sponsored attackers means, in this case, they’ve allowed another government to censor freedom of expression,” he explained, in an email to FoxNews.com. “This sets a bad precedent.”
“It looks like the North Koreans have been able to intimidate [Sony] into buckling under, and that’s a big thing,” added Roger Kay, president of research firm Endpoint Technologies. “It’s a big loss of face for Sony, quite frankly.”
Even after scrapping the movie’s release date, Sony’s cyber woes could continue, according to Polak.
“Appeasing the Sony attackers [reportedly government sponsored] isn’t a good idea,” he said in an email. “There is no guarantee that more of the same damaging material, such as employee private data or more internal communication emails, won’t be disclosed even with the film having been pulled from release.”
The hacking group calling itself Guardians of Peace released yet another round of data leaks earlier this week, the latest in a flurry of cyber blows aimed at the studio, which have included leaks of confidential data and unreleased movies, as well as threats against Sony employees.
Although specific details of the hack have not been released, its effects have been compared to the powerful Stuxnet virus that crippled Iranian nuclear systems in 2010.
Fox News is told that the Sony malware has two destructive threads: it overwrites data and it interrupts execution processes, such as a computer’s start-up functions. The FBI warns that the malware can be so destructive that the data is not recoverable or it is too costly a process to retrieve.
It is not clear how long the malware needs to be in the system before it brings on an almost complete paralysis. In the case of Sony, support functions — including emails — were knocked off-line, seen as a distraction while the more destructive attack was launching.
The digital attack on Sony’s servers bears all the hallmarks of North Korea’s infamous “Bureau 121,” an elite group of highly trained cyber spies, experts said.
Andrei Lankov, a Russian expert on North Korea who studied at Pyongyang’s Kim Il-sung University in the 1980s, told Fox News the paralyzing attack on Sony is similar to other hacks carried out by the communist dictatorship.
The wussification of America continues, as Liberals follow the example of their Dear Leader, Barack Hussein Obama.
It is no wonder that after Obama was first elected, the British tabloids nicknamed him “President Pantywaist”, after watching the wussy way he bowed to world leaders…something American Presidents have never done before.
And, of course, through the Obama Administration’s embrace of this emasculating philosophy, this philosophy has extended into our military, with Obama’s “Military Experts” being more concerned about performing Social Engineering Experiments on our troops, such as ending “Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell”, changing the hats they wear, and relaxing female hairstyles, than they are about protecting our country and defeating our enemies.
Somewhere in the bowels of the Kremlin, Putin is laughing his hindquarters off at us.
During the reign of the Obama Administration, a concentrated and deliberate effort has been made to change America from the land of Sgt. Alvin York to the land of RuPaul.
The reason that presidents like Ronald Reagan were so successful was that they were American men first and United States Presidents second. They were raised with Traditional American Values. They were raised by loving parents who disciplined them when they needed it, along the way, teaching them the difference between right and wrong, the love of God and Country, and the fact that the world did not revolve around them.
We can get back on the right track as a nation, however, it will take a man of Courage, Conviction, and Traditional Christian American Faith & Values to lead our country back from the abyss we find ourselves in.
I pray that man…or woman steps forward… while we still have a country.
Until He Comes,
KJ
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