Sony Pictures alerts users about hack attack

HACKER PLAYGROUND Sony has issued a consumer alert for a hack that happened last week.

Sony, specifically some areas of its online Sony Pictures' business, was hacked by the Lulzsec group last Thursday. Although that was bad it wasn't the first time that the firm has been hacked, nor has it been the last.

Still, Sony is used to responding to hacking attacks by now and has issued some guidance for people who might have been affected by the attack.

The company has already announced that it is investigating the attack, which was thought to have exposed around a million people in its online community, and has appealed to the FBI for support. The investigations must be going fairly well as the one million number has already been whittled down to somewhat less than that.

"Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) has provided notice to the approximately 37,500 people who may have had some personally identifiable information stolen during the recent attack on sonypictures.com," Sony said in its warning to users about the potential for phishing attacks.

"On June 2, 2011, we learned we were the target of a cyberattack when a hacker claimed that he had recently broken into sonypictures.com. Upon learning of this cyberattack, our team retained outside experts to conduct an investigation and forensic analysis."

The firm repeated its statement about working with the FBI and other investigators to find those responsible - we think we all know who that was - and said, "In addition, we promptly took offline all potentially affected databases containing personally identifiable information and contacted the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation." µ