In the past seven weeks, the chief executive of Sony Pictures has had to deal with a fallout from a cyberattack, which in his opinion, is similar to being rubbed and watching your house being burnt to the ground. However, he did say, that as devastating as it was, it may turn out that the hack isn’t that big of a disaster as it is being considered by many. The cyberattack is being termed as perhaps the most destructive on a private company in the US and Michael Lynton says that insurance will completely cover the cost of associated with it. Thus, it doesn’t mean that there will be any need of cost-cutting, even though it does mean that some painful restricting needs to be done.
In an interview, the CEO said that the cost is quite less than what was imagined and certainly wouldn’t cause any disruptions in the budget of the company. While he didn’t elaborate on any estimate for the costs for the entertainment arm of the firm, he said that it was fully covered by insurance. According to the experts’ estimates, the cost of the attack for Sony Corp were about $100 million, which could include measures taken for preventing future attacks, replacing or repairing computers and lost productivity while work is disrupted.
It is expected that similar fates will befall other companies too. It was the entertainment arm of Sony Corp., which was the target of the hack and massive amounts of data were wiped. The attack led to online distribution of sensitive employee data, email and pirated copies of new movies. It was carried out on November 21st and upon returning to the office, employees discovered that their computers were disabled and they couldn’t gain access to anything that was stored on the network, including emails, budget, contact information and distribution lists amongst others.
An employee said that it was as if the office was burned down because the company had prided itself on being paperless and ‘green’ so everything was stored on the network. The CEO of the firm said that the blame for the attack isn’t being placed on anyone in senior management because the cybersecurity firm Mandiant and the FBI have said that thick attack could have befallen about 90% of Corporate America. An investigator told him that the person responsible for writing the software must have been extremely angry.
It was determined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that the attack was launched by the North Korean government and it was conducted just as the studio was preparing to release The Interview, a bawdy comedy movie, which depicts the assassination of a North Korean leader. The film had been termed as ‘an act of war’, but the government of North Korea denied any involvement in the attack. In these days, Lynton, who prefers to stay away from the limelight has been thrust in the center of it when he had responded to the statement of President Obama calling the postponement of the movie’s release a mistake.