Financial impact of cyberattack on Sony was US$15m in Q3

4 Feb 2015

Sony has reported that the financial impact of the hack attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment was US$15m to the company so far. New evidence has also emerged suggesting another cyber disaster awaits Sony.

Before the attack Sony’s Pictures division was already having a bad year but because of the attack the division only released forecasted results for the third quarter.

Revenues at Sony Pictures are expected to have decreased 11.7pc year on year to US$1.6bn mainly due to a decrease in motion picture and TV production sales.

“The current quarter is expected to include approximately US$15m in investigation and remediation costs relating to the above-mentioned cyberattack,” Sony stated.

Overall Sony said it expects revenues of US$21.1bn, up 6pc driven by increased sales of smartphones and PlayStation products.

The company’s Game & Network Services group grew revenues 16.8pc year on year to US$4.3bn due to an increase in hardware unit sales and revenues from network services.

Another cyber disaster looming at Sony?

While many believe the attack on Sony – resulting in the leaking of sensitive data and numerous movies – was perpetrated by North Korea in response to Sony’s release of The Interview, a US security firm is claiming it has evidence that another threat looms, this time from Russia.

Taia Global claims it has evidence that Russian hackers have been siphoning off information from Sony’s network over the past few months.

The company also asserts that the Russian hackers are still on the Sony network.

The data includes emails from Sony staff and Excel files containing information on Sony contractors.

In its report Taia Global said: “This does not rule out North Korea’s involvement however it does raise questions about how contradictory evidence presented by numerous researchers and companies including Taia Global was evaluated.

“Taia Global presented linguistic evidence that indicated the likelihood 5 that Russian hackers were involved, however Taia Global was never contacted by any of the investigating agencies, nor Sony, nor any of the companies that it hired for incident response.”

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com