2014 Sony Pictures hack

On November 24, 2014, the hacker group "Guardians of Peace" leaked confidential data from the film studio Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE). The data included employee emails, personal and family information, executive salaries, copies of then-unreleased films, future film plans, screenplays, and other information.^[1] The perpetrators then employed a variant of the Shamoon wiper malware to erase Sony's computer infrastructure.^[2]

During the hack, the group demanded that Sony withdraw its then-upcoming film The Interview, a political satire^[3] action comedy film produced and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. The film stars Rogen and James Franco as journalists who set up an interview with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un only to then be recruited by the CIA to assassinate him. The hacker group threatened terrorist attacks at cinemas screening the film, resulting in many major U.S. theater chains opting not to screen The Interview. In response to these threats, Sony chose to cancel the film's formal premiere and mainstream release, opting to skip directly to a downloadable digital release followed by a limited theatrical release the next day.^[4][5][6]

United States intelligence officials, after evaluating the software, techniques, and network sources used in the hack, concluded that the attack was sponsored by the government of North Korea, which has since denied all responsibility.^[7]