14 DAY TRIAL // Sony Pictures issued a press release confirming that a group of hackers called LulzSec has managed to steal customer information from several of its websites.
"The cybercrime wave that has affected Sony companies and a number of government agencies, businesses and individuals in recent months has hit Sony Pictures as well. Yesterday afternoon a group of criminal hackers known as 'LulzSec' claimed to have breached some of our websites.
"We have confirmed that a breach has occurred and have taken action to protect against further intrusion. A respected team of outside experts is conducting a forensic analysis of the attack," the joint-statement from Michael Lynton, chairman and CEO, and Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, reads.
LulzSec is a relatively new presence on the hacking scene, at least under this name, and their motives seems to be political in nature.
They hacked into X-Factor USA and other Fox websites in order to leak people's personal information because they don't agree with the network's editorial direction. They've hacked into Sony because they want to shame the company after its crackdown on hackers.
They've hacked into PBS.org because they didn't like a WikiLeaks documentary the network ran and more recently they've hacked into FBI's InfraGard Atlanta chapter because the Obama administration wants to make hacking an act of war.
"We deeply regret and apologize for any inconvenience caused to consumers by this cybercrime," the Sony Picture execs say, but there is no mention of identity theft protection services or compensation.
There is also no explanation as to why people's passwords were stored in plain text, a major security no no that any junior web programmer knows. Storing plain text passwords instead of their cryptographic hashes carries great risks if hackers gain access to the database, which is exactly what happened in this case.
The risks stem from the fact that most people reuse the same password on multiple websites. A Sony Pictures account might not be very valuable, but a PayPal one clearly is.