Sony Pictures Goes Offline to Hide from Hackers

The movie studio has instructed employees not to connect to company networks or access email, after an apparent hacker threatened to disclose “secrets.”

Sony Pictures is telling insiders that the situation may take anywhere from one day to three weeks to resolve. On the morning of Nov. 24, company computers, apparently worldwide, displayed an image of a skeleton and a message stating, “Hacked by #GOP.” The message then said, “Warning: We’ve already warned you, and this is just the beginning… We have obtained all your internal data including secrets and top secrets.”

The statement warned that the data in question -- supposedly obtained from Sony’s systems --would be divulged Nov. 24, at 11 p.m. GMT, which was 3 p.m. Pacific/6 p.m. Eastern on Monday. The assault has been linked to a group called “Guardians of Peace,” according to Bloomberg.

The hack does not seem to be affecting other divisions of Sony Corp.

Sony’s information technology specialists directed employees to turn off their computers and disable Wi-Fi on all mobile devices.

The cyber intrusion was first reported by Deadline.com.

In 2011, an infamous security breach exposed names and passwords of millions of Sony PlayStation Network customers.