Between embarrassing personal emails, suspicions of North Korean involvement, and threats of future attacks - it seems unlikely that the cyber attack on Sony Pictures will be out of the headlines anytime soon.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has given some fresh insights into the sophisticated nature of the attack. It says that the hackers were "organised and certainly persistent" and that they used extremely complicated software programmes to carry out the attacks.
The FBI says that the attackers could have breached "90 percent of internet defenses that are out there today in the private industry" and that they would come close to cracking the US government's defense systems.
Sony Pictures premiered Seth Rogan and James Franco's film The Interview in LA last night - with limited press access. The controversial film has been described by North Korea as an act of 'terrorism'. It features a scene where Kim Jong-un is assassinated.
[The following paragraphs contain spoilers!]
Two months before the cyber attack worried emails were exchanged within Sony, they centred on the film's climactic scene. The Interview ends with Kim Jong-un's head exploding. The sequence involves a helicopter, is in slow motion, and features Katy Perry’s 2010 hit “Firework”.
Top executives in Japan feared that the film went too far, they put pressure on Sony Pictures' co-chairwoman Amy Pascal to alter the ending. She emailed Seth Rogan, the film's lead actor and director, asking him to make changes to the film.
Amy Pascal is currently going viral after being captured receiving a particularly frosty reception from actor and UN ambassador, Angelina Jolie. They came face-to-face yesterday for the first time since a leaked email exchange between Pascal and producer Scott Rudin saw the latter refer to Jolie as a "minimally talented spoiled brat".
An email conversation between Amy Pascal and Seth Rogan has also been leaked. She asked him to change the final scene of the film, and received this response:
“We will make it less gory. There are currently four burn marks on his face. We will take out three of them, leaving only one. We reduce the flaming hair by 50 pwecent … The head explosion can’t be more obscured than it is because we honestly feel that if it’s any more obscured you won’t be able to tell its exploding and the joke won’t work. Do you think this will help? Is it enough?”
It is understood that Kaz Hirai, CEO of Sony Corporation expressed personal reservations about the film's ending. A series of re-cuts were rejected by executives. According to the emails the issue was finally resolved in October.
Rogan and Franco recently made light of the hacking controversy in their opening monologue on Saturday Night Live.
Contains almost nudity
North Korea has denied involvement, but praised the hackers - calling their attack a "righteous deed".
Speaking earlier this week the FBI refused to discuss their current list of suspects. Assistant director with the FBI’s cyber division, Joe Demarest, told a conference: "There is no attribution to North Korea at this point."
The agency has also pointed out that the capability to carry out a cyber attack on this scale was not confined to government-funded units.
