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Sony Pictures Entertainment’s security woes escalated this weekend when it was reported that a handful of the studio’s recently produced films were released to file-sharing websites.
The pirated copies of five movies began showing up online just days after a security breach reportedly forced the film and TV arm of Japanese tech and media conglomerate Sony to shut down its network.
Four unreleased titles are among the movies leaked online, including a remake of the musical “Annie” and “Mr. Turner,” both of which are due to be released next month, according to Variety. Other movies released include “Fury,” a Brad Pitt World War II drama released last month, and “Still Alice,” a Julianne Moore movie due to be released in January.
Sony could not immediately be reached for comment but told Variety it was working with law enforcement officials on an investigation of the theft.
“The theft of Sony Pictures Entertainment content is a criminal matter, and we are working closely with law enforcement to address it,” a Sony spokeswoman told the entertainment industry news site.
Earlier this week, a hacking group calling itself #GOP claimed to have obtained Sony Pictures’ internal data, including its “secrets,” and said it would release the data to the public if its demands were not met, according to reports. It is unclear what the hacker group is demanding.
Since the November 24 attack on Sony’s network, investigators have been working to determine who was behind the hack. The company is said to be investigating the possibility that hackers working on behalf of North Korea were behind the attack, according to Recode. The site speculated that the attack may be in response to Sony’s forthcoming film “The Interview,” a comedy due to be released next month starring Seth Rogen and James Franco as TV journalists who become embroiled in a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.
This hack could be the latest in a string of embarrassing security breaches for Sony. Earlier this month, hacker group DerpTrolling released thousands of what it claimed were user logins from PlayStation Network, 2K Games and Windows Live — though some reports have suggested the leak may have been faked.
In August, Sony’s PlayStation Network was taken down by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, a common hacker technique that overwhelms a system with traffic and makes regular service temporarily unavailable. The gaming network was also the target of a more severe hack in 2011, which led to the exposure of the personal data of more than 100 million customers signed up for PlayStation Network, Qriocity, and Sony Online. Sony took the networks — for downloading and playing games, movies, and music — offline for about a month before bringing them back up.
