Sony goes on cyber lockdown following hack

Sony Pictures Entertainment suffered a widespread hack that rendered the film studio’s computer systems useless, in a twist right out of a cybersecurity thriller movie. Employees of the Culver City-based studio who tried to log on to their work computers Monday were greeted with an ominous warning. An image of a sneering red skeleton appeared on the screen under “Hacked By #GOP,” reportedly short for “Guardians of Peace,” and a list of threats. Then the system went dark. Staff from coast to coast couldn’t log on to computers or access email, bringing the workday to a crawl. They were reduced to using old-fashioned pen and paper to complete assignments and taking calls on landline telephones. “We even fired up our fax machine,” one person said. The hacker group’s warning that popped up on computers had overtones of blackmail to Sony, the company behind movies such as “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” and TV shows including “The Blacklist.” Without specifying demands, the group warned Sony that it had obtained “secrets” and threatened to leak them to the Web. The hackers said they would release internal information late Monday, but there was no indication that they followed through.