The cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment by North Korea (in retaliation of its satirical film The Interview) destroyed 3,000 computers and 800 servers and famously revealed proprietary content including executives’ emails. Security consultants say such nation-on-corporation cyberattacks will increase. “There are probably a couple thousand, three, four, five-thousand people that could do [the Sony] attack today,” says former hacker Jon Miller, now VP of Strategy at Cylance, a company that creates anti-virus software.
North Korea didn’t just spy on and steal information from Sony, it destroyed the company’s data and their hardware, and then released the stolen information to the media. Kevin Mandia, SVP-COO of FireEye, the cybersecurity firm that’s helping Sony recover. “Sony scares CEOs…all of the sudden, every chief information security officer is talking to their board…every board wants to know: Is this the new normal?’” Both cyber security experts have been interviewed by 60 Minutes by Steve Kroft. His report will air April 12 at 7pm on CBS.
