Before Intruders Ransacked Sony Pictures, Some Hackers Went After Hollywood’s Biggest Union

ART Payroll, a company that handles residual payments for actors and others who belong to SAG-AFTRA, notified clients last week of a "data security incident that may affect the security of your personal information."

On Oct. 18, the firm detected an unauthorized login onto the company's Web application.

The word comes as Sony Pictures struggles to recover from a hack last week that compromised company details, including Social Security numbers of thousands of people and salaries of executives, as well as copies of several films.

There is no indication the Sony and ART Payroll incidents are related. The security breach at ART Payroll was detected several weeks before the hacking at Sony.

"The unauthorized intruders had access to the database for less than two hours ... our experts determined that your information may have been accessed by the intruders," ART Payroll President Emily Erskine wrote in a Nov. 26 letter to customers.

The information exposed included Social Security numbers, private accounts and addresses.