Roughly a week after hackers breached Sony Picture Entertainment's computer network, the FBI has warned US businesses about a new hacking threat that appears to be coming from the same type of malicious software that affected the movie studio, according to Reuters.
Issued late yesterday, the confidential "flash" warning notes that the malware "overrides all data" on hard drives, including the master boot record, which in turn prevents the systems from booting up.
"The overwriting of the data files will make it extremely difficult and costly, if not impossible, to recover the data using standard forensic methods," the warning report said, while noting that some of the software used by the hackers had been compiled in Korean.
Aside from offering technical details, the report also provides information on how to respond to the malware, and asks businesses to contact the FBI if they identified similar malware.
Last month's attack on Sony Picture's corporate systems saw hackers demanding the company to “obey” them (though they didn't clearly mention what their demands were), failing which they said they will release the stolen data, which apparently included company's financial records and password files.
A few days later DVD-quality rips of at least five of the studio's newest films, including Annie, Still Alice, Mr. Turner, and To Write Love on Her Arms, as well as Fury, the Brad Pitt starrer which released last month, were leaked online. There was no confirmation that the leak came from the same breach.
https://www.techspot.com/news/59037-fbi-warns-businesses-malware-sony-hack.html
