Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sony Got Hacked Hard: What We Know and Don't Know So Far

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 184 posts

Re: Sony Got Hacked Hard: What We Know and Don't Know So Far

#41

Post by akshatpradhan »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #34

Many people suggest that startups not over-optimize on issues like security and performance when it's not their core business. The same could be said of Sony: empathize a little with them. Sony Pictures pays a lot of creative people. Maybe they should have seen the hack coming, but like the PSN outage this story will be maybe a paragraph in a Wikipedia article years from now. Even one great film could be watched by p…

Sony Pictures has an operating income (revenue minus expenses) of $501 million per year. They can afford to pay creatives, but they can't afford to pay for a few more security engineers?

Look, I get the creative field costs a lot of money. But Sony Pictures was paying $454,224,070 http://fusion.net/story/30850/ in total salaries as of May.

Even hiring 5 more security engineers would have gone a long way. That's $1 million if we assume a $200k salary for good security engineers. A drop in the bucket for Sony Pictures.

I personally could do a lot with 5 security engineers.

Re: Sony Got Hacked Hard: What We Know and Don't Know So Far

#43

Post by barkingcat »

deciplex wrote: post #40
dagw wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North Korea as a country might be behind the technological curve, but several reports indicate the the North Korean Army cyber warfare division is pretty well funded and advanced. There is a huge divide between the day to day realities of the average NK citizen and the realities of the upper echelons.

Who makes up the cyber-warfare division? If I traveled in time back to 1850 with a billion dollars worth of gold bullion, I couldn't hire a single black hat with it. So a few kids of the party elite get to go to nice schools abroad - where are the rest coming from? Or does DPRK have a shit-hot education system in spite of literally other thing about the country being godawful and totally backwards? If so it's the fir…

If you think about it, DPRK can afford to send hacker-to-be's to top engineering programs in Europe and the United States, and then bring them back to NK as blackhat hackers.

The current leader went to boarding school in europe - and enjoyed the privileges awarded in that social circle. Corruption doesn't always make logical sense, nor is it limited by morality!

A very simple idea. Find bright kids. Send them overseas to the US primary education system. Their parents stay behind in NK and are bound to the society in NK - the kids need to perform well in school in order for the government to keep giving the parents a reasonable life.

Upon graduation from primary and secondary school in say, California, the kids enroll and try as hard as they can to get into Stanford. Graduate from the CS department, get a phd doing original work in encryption algorithms, and then when they are adults, they return to NK knowing that their parents had a good life b/c of their hard work.

Now you get some nice black hat hackers!

Basically this is how Kim Jong Il created a new young dictator willing to threaten nuclear war. I don't doubt their cyberwarfare division is run in a similar way.

Re: Sony Got Hacked Hard: What We Know and Don't Know So Far

#44

Post by l33tbro »

akshatpradhan wrote: post #41
doctorpangloss wrote: post #34

Many people suggest that startups not over-optimize on issues like security and performance when it's not their core business. The same could be said of Sony: empathize a little with them. Sony Pictures pays a lot of creative people. Maybe they should have seen the hack coming, but like the PSN outage this story will be maybe a paragraph in a Wikipedia article years from now. Even one great film could be watched by p…

Sony Pictures has an operating income (revenue minus expenses) of $501 million per year. They can afford to pay creatives, but they can't afford to pay for a few more security engineers? Look, I get the creative field costs a lot of money. But Sony Pictures was paying $454,224,070 http://fusion.net/story/30850/ in total salaries as of May. Even hiring 5 more security engineers would have gone a long way. That's $1 mi…

Exactly. Let's not engage in this faux polemic about art-v-practicality. Sony are not mumblecore aesthetes from Bushwick. They are a megalith that should have their security locked down hard. Sorry you got owned, but seriously get with consensual reality: hackerfolk tend to hate owners of Big Content like you. Should have seen this coming ...

Re: Sony Got Hacked Hard: What We Know and Don't Know So Far

#45

Post by CamperBob2 »

yabatopia wrote: post #26

It's Sony Pictures Entertainment that got hacked, not Sony. They're completely separate companies, yet the media fails to recognize that. Very annoying and confusing, it's almost deliberately.

BS. We heard the same lame excuse when the Sony-BMG rootkit debacle took place. You want to use the name "Sony" for positive publicity and goodwill? Then you take the negative publicity along with it.

Re: Sony Got Hacked Hard: What We Know and Don't Know So Far

#46

Post by vidarh »

chx wrote: post #25
derefr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Effectively, Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Pictures Entertainment are about as related as Virgin Airlines and Virgin Mobile. Think of Sony (and any conglomerate in general) not as a parent company per se , but more like a VC firm or a majority-shareholder mutual fund; the executives of the Sony conglomerate don't really have any more insight into the component companies than those companies' other shareholders…

Eh, if I am a majority shareholder then I will read the riot act to the company I hold a majority in after they lose $171M on shitty security. Also, http://www.sony.com/SCA/who-we-are/our-businesses.shtml lists all these so there is some cohesion. AFAIK there's no such Virgin supercompany.

Virgin Group Ltd. is the "supercompany", but you are right that there's a big difference: Virgin Group owns the brand, and holds positions in many Virgin companies, and majority positions in some, but many others have been divested entirely and uses the brand solely under license.

Re: Sony Got Hacked Hard: What We Know and Don't Know So Far

#48

Post by matthewmacleod »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #34

Many people suggest that startups not over-optimize on issues like security and performance when it's not their core business. The same could be said of Sony: empathize a little with them. Sony Pictures pays a lot of creative people. Maybe they should have seen the hack coming, but like the PSN outage this story will be maybe a paragraph in a Wikipedia article years from now. Even one great film could be watched by p…

Many people suggest that startups not over-optimize on issues like security and performance when it's not their core business.

And that's a fucking stupid thing to say in those cases, so it's a fucking stupid thing to say here.

Things like security and performance should be given. This is akin to arguing that small restaurants shouldn't care about food safety, or that small construction firms shouldn't worry about building codes. If you ignore these things, you'll fuck it up and people will get hurt.

Re: Sony Got Hacked Hard: What We Know and Don't Know So Far

#49

Post by maaaats »

tortos123 wrote: post #29

haha funny shit on YC... they are promoting the wire like bitches.... I posted about sony being hacked 4 days ago when it was to actually happen... But wire does a report at it oh 1st on YC... this site is full of brats... /neveragain checking this site out. Shadoban me.thanks

Your title to that post was bad, you misspelled Sony and editorialized the title: "Sonny just got hacked!". And whether a post is successful or not can be a bit random.

Re: Sony Got Hacked Hard: What We Know and Don't Know So Far

#50

Post by dagw »

deciplex wrote: post #40
dagw wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North Korea as a country might be behind the technological curve, but several reports indicate the the North Korean Army cyber warfare division is pretty well funded and advanced. There is a huge divide between the day to day realities of the average NK citizen and the realities of the upper echelons.

Who makes up the cyber-warfare division? If I traveled in time back to 1850 with a billion dollars worth of gold bullion, I couldn't hire a single black hat with it. So a few kids of the party elite get to go to nice schools abroad - where are the rest coming from? Or does DPRK have a shit-hot education system in spite of literally other thing about the country being godawful and totally backwards? If so it's the fir…

North Korea is nothing like the 1850s. The elites have access to all the technology you and I have, as well as all the latest textbooks and scientific publications, mainly via imports from China. Even people outside the power structure are exposed to computers in school and many can buy computers and radios on the black market.

North Korea, like South Korea and many of its neighbors a have tradition of putting a lot of weight on basic education and kids there compete for top grades and positions in special advanced schools.

As to the cyber warfare divisions. According to reports, kids as young as 12 who show aptitude for mathematics are selected for rigorous advanced computer schools. Those that pass go on to study computer science at special universities. The top graduates each year then get selected for a 5 year intense military training course, which includes studies in Russia or China. Getting selected for the cyber warfare unit is apparently one of the most prestigious military postings in NK and comes with lots of perks, so the competition to get in is fierce.

Post reply on HN