Hackers run wild

It hasn’t been a very happy holiday season for Sony Pictures, which was hacked recently and had sensitive internal files compromised.

Five movies—four of them unreleased—were leaked along with 11 terabytes of personal data, including executive salaries, release schedules, employee criminal background checks and passwords (kept securely in a directory titled “passwords”). The company’s entire network had to be shut down and employees couldn’t even use their computers or laptops for more than a week.

The irony of the Sony Pictures situation is that their leaky security was exposed three years ago by two Arizona men in concert with LulzSec leader-turned-stoolie Sabu, aka Hector Xavier Monsegur. The group released names, emails and passwords of 75,000 people.