Sony hack now 'a badge of honour'

The head of Sony Music has claimed that the recent spate of online attacks has being driven by hackers seeking a “badge of honour” within their community, as the firm struggles to keep its data secure.
The claim follows reports that hackers have published the mobile phone numbers, travelling aliases, salaries and other personal details of a number of high profile stars, including Brad Pitt, Daniel Craig, Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.
The details are part of the hack which also saw five upcoming movie releases plastered all over the Internet. Meanwhile this week a separate group, Lizard Squad, claimed responsibility for taking down the PlayStation Store and PlayStation Network.
Kevin Murray, head of digital at Sony Music US, told Computing that the Japanese firm is suffering because it is a “huge global media company” and has a “big target on its back”.
“There are not a lot of companies that have the scope and breadth that Sony has, and so some hackers try to get notoriety – I guess it’s a badge of honour in the IT community,” he said.
Murray went on to suggest that one hack in one division has opened the entire company’s operations as potential targets as hackers.
“We’re having to look at security on every level, not just the security team; we have to make sure that data that shouldn’t be accessible outside of the company is kept secure,” he stated.
“I don’t know if there is a successful strategy for locking everything down … we’re balancing ourselves from limiting access to information and preventing ourselves from being hacked,” he added.
In the wake of the 2011 hack attack, in which the personal information of about 77 million PSN users worldwide was compromised, Sony was slammed by the EU, the FBI and other US government officials as well as by its millions of customers. It was eventually fined £250,000 by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office for breaching UK data protection laws.

Sony hack now ‘a badge of honour’

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