First, they went after Sony. Now, a bigger target: Google.
The hackers behind the enormous cyberattack on Sony—North Korea, if the FBI is to be believed—have issued a new message and, with it, new demands.
After praising Sony’s decision to cancel the Christmas release of The Interview as “very wise,” the hackers said “we want everything related to the movie, including its trailers, as well as its full version down from any website hosting them immediately.”
Sony is reportedly already complying.
The controversial clip of a fictional version of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un being killed in a fiery helicopter explosion has already made its way to YouTube. The hackers’ newest demands mean that they are telling Sony to file copyright claims in order to wage a frantic legal war to keep everything related to The Interview off of the Internet.
The Interview
The hackers warned Sony executives that “we still have your private and sensitive data” and say they will “ensure the security of your data unless you make additional trouble.”
The FBI has called the hack and subsequent terror threats an attempt “to suppress the right of American citizens to express themselves.”
“Such acts of intimidation fall outside the bounds of acceptable state behavior.”
One potential strategy is for Sony to simply do nothing. When The Interview leaks, don’t file takedown claims.
If the movie or even its clips don’t last on YouTube, that could mean that Google’s being dragged even deeper into this scandal, broadening the scope of the hackers’ war.
Photo via Roman Harak/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0) | Remix by Fernando Alfonso III
