Sony Pictures faces up to the Lulzsec hack

ENTERTAINMENT, ELECTRONICS AND HACKER-BAIT firm Sony has admitted that it fell victim to an attack by the Lulzsec group and revealed that it is working with the FBI to track down the culprits.

Having already seen its gaming services taken offline for a month, the Japanese giant was further embarrassed last week when Lulzsec released files containing the usernames and passwords of roughly one million members of its online communities.

At the time the company said that it was aware of reports of an attack and said that it was investigating them, now it has updated its message.

In a statement Michael Lynton, chairman and CEO, and Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment said that the latest attack was part of a wave of recent online activity, and suggested that it was not the only target.

"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," they wrote.

"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. In addition, we have contacted the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and are working with them to assist in the identification and apprehension of those responsible for this crime."

Sony, as we have come to expect, said that it deeply regretted any inconvenience to its users, and apologised for the impact of the attacks. We can't say the same for Lulzsec.

Responding to complaints about the attack and the fact that it exposed individuals and not just Sony, the group responded with "Hey innocent people whose data we leaked: blame @Sony." µ