What with North Korea’s latest explosion of bile, Sony is having a network security issue that will be used as an example of how bad things can get for probably decades. The phrase “I’m in the middle of a Sony” will be regularly used within the industry for the worst types of incidents.
It is not clear just what happened to Sony during the incident, and it will quite possibly never be clear. There are rumours that it may be something as simple as a phishing attack, and the FBI has claimed it has recovered code with similarities to code used in previous attacks against targets the North Koreans would wish to target.
It seems pretty certain that the North Koreans were involved in the attack against Sony; in addition to the code fragments, the North Koreans have gone out of their way to claim the attack was orchestrated by themselves. Yes they denied the attacks, but in the same way that a little kid denies having stolen the cake with all the evidence on his face.
Normally a corporation under attack from a state actor can be forgiven for getting opened up like a can of peaches, but this is Sony and a bunch of idiots who if they hadn’t lucked out by being in charge of North Korea would have trouble getting a job flipping burgers.
So Sony Pictures needs to have a good long look at it’s security. Two big tips for Sony:
First of all, change the name of the security team to the insecurity team. That is not a criticism of the team that does security at Sony right now, but because there is an assumption that the security team handles security and the rest of us doesn’t have to bother.
In reality, security is everyone’s responsibility.
Secondly take a second look at every recommendation that your security team has ever made and you have said No to. And reconsider.