When Sony Pictures employees arrived at their Culver City campus early yesterday morning, they were greeted to a less-than-ideal situation. A group going under the name of #GOP had successfully hacked the entire studio, bringing work to a screeching halt. As a result of the hack, all computers at Sony Pictures displayed an image of a blood red skeleton with links to where Sony could find proof of the hack’s extent. That’s because, besides all computers being down and unable to even reach out to the web, the group claims that they were all able to find damning information that Sony Pictures does not want people to see.

Despite claiming that unless Sony met their demands by 6:00PM EST that they would release the given information, there appears to be no leaked documents yet. However, computers at Sony Pictures remain to be down in what appears to be a partial inside job with a goal towards ‘equality’ for employees.

Plot twist, right? Details after the jump.

While there remains no official channel to talk with #GOP (which is also the worst hashtag to use as it’s also used by Republicans in the US, thus burying any conversation that might have taken place about SP on Twitter), the group did share their thoughts via The Verge. According to an email #GOP, which stands for Guardians of Peace, want

  equality [sic]. Sony doesn’t. It’s an upward battle. 

Lena, one of the self identified hackers, went on to say

 Sony doesn’t lock their doors, physically, so we worked with other staff with similar interests to get in. Im sorry I can’t say more, safety for our team is important [sic]. 

While the above information is all vague, it does appear that #GOP is looking to advance the standing of employees at Sony Pictures. The issue at hand could be tied to pay, compensation, and other financial incentives within Sony Pictures. It also seems that Lena and #GOP were partially able to execute their hacks thanks to support and access from within Sony Pictures which only employees could provide.

As we mentioned, the group has yet to release what they claim is Sony’s “secrets and top secrets” but from what has been released, the material is legitimate. So far the group has released internal files from Sony Pictures which include promotional material and stills which though private, are far from sensitive. Depending on how much data was taken, the group could simply still be sorting through data or even negotiating through backend channels with Sony. On the other hand, it could all be a bluff but it’s hard to gauge since neither party is talking about the incident much.

For its part, Sony Pictures has escalated the mater from “investigating an IT matter” to

 Sony Pictures Entertainment experienced a system disruption, which are working diligently to resolve [sic]. 

We’ll be sure to keep you updated as the story further unfolds. If you’d like to send us a different take on this story, remember that all tips submitted to SRN are completely anonymous unless you choose otherwise. You can access our tips form here.

Discuss:

What do you think #GOP wants?