Chinese government hackers may have broken into the United States Postal Service computer network earlier this year, potentially accessing the information of more than 800,000 government employees and some customers. The hack was initially spotted in September, but wasn’t revealed to the public until today when The Washington Post broke the story.

USPS officials wouldn’t comment on who was behind this cyber attack, though spokesman David Partenheimer told the Post it was “a sophisticated actor that appears not to be interested in identity theft or credit card fraud.” The FBI is reportedly in charge of the ongoing investigation.

Any USPS customers who contacted the agency’s customer care center by phone or email between January 1 and August 16 may be at risk. Hackers were reportedly able to obtain names, email addresses and phone numbers, though the USPS notes that no customer credit card or social security numbers were exposed.

The hackers targeted the Office of Personnel Management as well USIS, an independent contractor focused on security clearance. They managed to get the name, date of birth, social security number, phone number, address, and date of employment for every USPS employee. Still, officials say there’s no reason to worry.

“Fortunately, we have seen no evidence of malicious use of the compromised data,” said Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. “We are taking steps to help our employees protect against any potential misuse of their data.”

Source: Washington Post

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Hackers from China broke into the US federal weather system in late September, according to a report in the Washington Post.

The hack targeted a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration web server and affected four NOAA web sites that process and coordinate data and images from satellites that track storms, temperature, and other weather systems.

In order to the respond to the breach, government officials told the Post that cybersecurity teams had to "seal off data vital to disaster planning, aviation, shipping and scores of other crucial uses."

This temporarily compromised the accuracy of some National Weather Service forecasts and may have slightly skewed long-range weather forecasts.

Officials also told the Post that NOAA didn't immediately follow procedures requiring any government agency to notify certain officials in the event of a security breach.

This caused NOAA to perform unscheduled maintenance in order to restore security.

In response to a request for information from Business Insider, NOAA spokesperson Scott Smullen provided this statement:

In recent weeks, four NOAA websites were compromised by an internet-sourced attack. NOAA staff detected the attacks and incident response began immediately. Unscheduled maintenance was performed by NOAA to mitigate the attacks. The unscheduled maintenance impacts were temporary and all services have been fully restored. These effects did not prevent us from delivering forecasts to the public. The investigation is continuing with the appropriate authorities and we cannot comment further.

WaPo notes that the purpose of the hack itself was most likely an attempt try to find an opening into US government agency computer systems by exploiting a not-very-secure entry point. Although NOAA's web sites are protected, one person who was familiar with those systems described their security to the Post as "just a screen door."

Through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Post uncovered a previously unreleased report from July that described NOAA's security as highly vulnerable.

The confirmation of this hack follows a report from Monday that China may have hacked the US Postal Service, which compromised the personal information of 800,000 employees.

SEE ALSO: China May Have Hacked The US Postal Service

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department's unclassified email systems were the victim of a cyberattack in recent weeks, around the same time as the White House systems were breached, according to media reports.

The State Department's network was infiltrated last month, but the department did not disconnect the affected systems until over the weekend, according to federal technology information website nextgov.com.

It said there was abnormal activity in the email system as recently as late October.

The State Department breach follows similar intrusions disclosed in recent months at the White House, the Office of Personnel Management and, just last week, U.S. Postal Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

USPS said it was the victim of an intrusion that may have compromised the personal information of more than 800,000 employees, as well as data on customers who contacted its call center during the first eight months of this year. In the NOAA case, four of the agency's websites were affected.

The State Department cyberattack was first reported Sunday by The Associated Press.

The intrusion did not affect any of the department's classified systems, the New York Times reported.

(Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Susan Heavey)

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A website in Russian, which has a domain named registered in Australian-controlled Cocos Islands is streaming the feeds of thousands of webcams with lax password security from around the world.

In Australia, ABC Radio’s AM reports that cameras showing a baby in a cot in Melbourne, a Perth parking lot and a Melbourne lounge room appear on the website among 300 from the country. It also includes the GPS location of the images.

More than 4,500 cameras in the USA, 2,000 in France and 500 in Britain have also been targeted in the hack, which exploits default setting passwords such as “1234″ to gain access.

Security cameras in homes, workplaces and businesses such as laundromats as well as baby monitors are among the webcams appearing on the site.

British information commissioner Christopher Graham told the ABC that the site was discovered by data protection experts in Hong Kong in the past 24 hours, who alerted Australian authorities and the concern has since spread worldwide.

The site’s administrators say is it designed “to show the importance of the security settings.” It says people only need to change the password to a more secure one for it to be removed from the site.

Since the massive hack was discovered, authorities in Britain, China, US and Australia are among those are lobbying Russia to force those responsible for the site to take it down. They have not identified it for fear of generating traffic to the site

Professor Carsten Maple, from the University of Warwick’s Cyber Security Centre told the ABC that the hackers most likely created the site for kudos among their peers.

“We don’t know what other activity they might be up to. They might do something that’s more advanced in terms of hacking, in a sense, I don’t know,” he said.

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A hacker group by the name of DerpTrolling claims to have hacked the PlayStation Network, Windows Live, and 2K Games Studios platforms, posting many of the username/password combinations on Pastebin to prove it.

According to CNET, the Pastebin link includes usernames and passwords for 2,131 PlayStation Network users, 1,473 Windows Live users, and 2,000 2k Game Studios users. 

The hacking group had previously said it didn’t want to leak customer data, but explained why it changed its mind in the Pastebin document. 

"We were advised by one of our friends over at RedHack to make adjustments in our operations," the DerpTrolling member said. "A show of force from us, would be an attack on 2K that would be very similar to our attacks on Blizzard. Like I said, DerpTrolling in no way wants to harm our children by leaking such damaging data. It's only a warning to the companies."

The DerpTrolling group insists it wants to force these major gaming companies — Sony, Microsoft, and 2K — into upgrading their servers to prevent this type of hacking, but in case those companies don’t get the message, DerpTrolling claims to have even more data. 

"We have 800,000 from 2K and 500,000 credit card data. In all of our raids we have a total of around 7 million usernames and passwords," he said. "We have around 2 million Comcast accounts, 620,000 Twitter accounts, 1.2 million credentials belonging to the CIA domain, 200,000 Windows Live accounts, 3 million Facebook, 1.7 million EA origins accounts, etc.”

We’ve reached out to Microsoft, Sony, and 2K, and we’ll update this story as soon as we learn more. As we wait for official word from these companies, we strongly advise any users of these platforms change the passwords associated with their accounts.

SEE ALSO: How Flip Phones Could Return In A Big Way

SEE ALSO: You Can Now Play 'Super Smash Bros.' On A Graphing Calculator

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Things have come to a standstill at Sony today, after the computers in New York and around the world were infiltrated by a hacker.

As a precaution, computers in Los Angeles were shut down while the corporation deals with the breach.

It has basically brought the whole corporation to a standstill.

I’d heard that a skull appeared on screens, and then a strangely ominous message telling users they’d been hacked by something called #GOP.

It gets more bizarre as the message claims this is just the beginning and then threatens to release documents.

There is no reason given why this is happening, and no specific demands. While Sony works this through, there are no emails and it’s hit or miss on whether calls are going to email.

“We are down, completely paralyzed,” said a source. Waiting on reaction from Sony, but if you’re not getting your calls or emails returned from Culver City, don’t take it as an insult or reason to feel small.

SEE ALSO: JJ Abrams confirms 88-second "Star Wars" trailer

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Staff in every office of movie studio Sony Pictures have been left to try and do their jobs using just pen and paper after hackers broke into the company's computer system. 

A new report in the Times reveals that staff have been banned from using computers. "There are people sitting at their desks trying to do their job with a pen and paper," a Sony Pictures source told the Times. "It’s the same all over the world."

The only computers that still work in the Sony Pictures London office are the Macs used for video-editing. Staff are free to use those devices because they were never connected to the internet, and so hackers haven't accessed them. 

There's even a notice attached to the lift in the company building banning employees from trying to use their computers, or from attempting to log into the company Wi-Fi system. Sony has reportedly told employees that it could take up to three weeks to fix the company network.

This wasn't a simple hack that resulted in a few files being stolen. Instead, the hacker group reportedly took over the internal computer system, displaying their own messages, and even seized control of promotional Twitter accounts for Hollywood movies.

A source inside Sony Pictures, speaking to Deadline, said "We are down, completely paralyzed."

The group behind the hack, Guardians of Peace, claim to have help inside Sony that enabled to take over their computers. They said that staff within Sony who had similar opinions to the group let them into the computer network.

This is what computer screens inside Sony Pictures looked like after the hack:

Ars Technica reports that the gang of hackers have published a list of files they claim to have stolen from the Sony Pictures computer network. Here are some of the most interesting things on the list: 

• Digital copies of passports and visa documents belonging to stars like Angelina Jolie, Cameron Diaz and director Roland Emmerich.
• Over 700 documents containing passwords.
• 179 archived Outlook mailboxes belonging to company executives and IT staff.
• Movie budget spreadsheets
• Cameron Diaz's medical rider

But there was something interesting found on the Sony computer network along with administrative files. The GOP hacker group claims to have found pirated copies of television episodes from rival studios on the computers of Sony Pictures employees, including Adventure Time and Human Planet.

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North Korea is not denying allegations made by US officials that the country was behind a massive hack on Sony Pictures last week that took down the company's computer network.

When contacted by the BBC, a North Korean government spokesman said: "Wait and see."

A group calling itself "Guardians of Peace" broke into the servers of Sony Pictures, an international movie studio owned by Sony.

The group took over screens inside the company, stealing files and even leaking unreleased movies online. Employees were left using pens and paper to do their jobs, unable to even attempt to log on to their computers.

Here's what screens inside Sony Pictures looked like after the hack:

It's still not known exactly who the Guardians of Peace are. They say they have a source inside Sony who had similar opinions and let them inside the computer network. But US intelligence agencies aren't buying that claim.

NBC News says it has knowledge of classified briefings that suggested North Korea was a possible source of the hack. It's not completely far-fetched, as the country has been tied to hackings in the past. According to Re/code, North Korea has its own hacking army division known as Unit 121, which is widely suspected of being behind cyberattacks on South Korea and the US.

North Korea also has a motive to attack Sony Pictures. The studio is set to release "The Interview" this month, which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco as celebrity journalists who land an interview with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un before attempting to kill him.

On June 25, North Korea's official news agency denounced the film as a "blatant act of terrorism and war." And on July 11, the country's ambassador to the UN accused the movie as being an "act of war."

An official from North Korea's London embassy refused to comment on the Sony Pictures hack, telling Business Insider that they were "not interested" in talking to the press.

SEE ALSO: North Korea Won't Like It, But Seth Rogen's 'The Interview' Is Hilarious

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North Korea has put together a secret army of computer hackers that it uses to disrupt South Korean military options and break into US military computers. 

It might seem strange that North Korea has a dedicated cyber-warfare army unit. After all, only a few hundred people in the country even have access to the internet. But the country has worked to establish an elite group of hackers.

North Korean defectors say that the country actively searches for schoolchildren who display mathematical talent, and then trains them up in elite universities to become experts in hacking.

We don't know exactly how many people work as hackers. One report claims that there are 17,000 members, but a North Korean defector has said that there are just 10 teams of hackers, each with less than five members.

The army division, known as Unit 121, is known to be spread between three different locations: A cluster of concrete buildings in Pyongyang, a training camp in India, and a luxury hotel in China near the North Korean border.

A 2009 report authored by Army Major Steve Sin, a senior analyst working for the US military in South Korea, reveals that some members of Unit 121 work from the Chilbosan Hotel in the Shenyang region of China. He claims that a North Korean defector said in 2004 that some hacking teams work from the hotel.

Before we get to the Chinese hotel, here is a typical North Korean hotel, so you can see what the hackers would be used to before their trip to China:

Here's the outside of the Chilbosan hotel in Shenyang, China, alleged home of some of North Korea's hackers:

Inside, the rooms are spacious.

Rooms even have their own minibars!

This is what the bathrooms look like. 

The hotel also features free Wi-Fi, which is useful if you're a hacker.

The hotel also has its own band.

It's not clear whether North Korea's hackers are actually any good. But their reputation precedes them: In the West this week everyone is gossipping over the hack of Sony Pictures, which virtually shut down the company's officers. Some people say it was North Korean hackers who were trying to prevent the studio from releasing a movie in which Kim Jong Un is portrayed in a bad light.

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Eight days after a massive cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, the Hollywood studio was still struggling to restore some systems Tuesday evening as investigators combed for evidence to identify the culprit.

Some employees at the Sony Corp. entertainment unit were given new computers to replace ones that had been attacked with the rare data-wiping virus, which had made their machines unable to operate, according to a person with knowledge of Sony's operations.

In a memo to staff seen by Reuters, studio co-chiefs Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal acknowledged that "a large amount of confidential Sony Pictures Entertainment data has been stolen by the cyber attackers, including personnel information and business documents."

They are "not yet sure of the full scope of information that the attackers have or might release," according to the memo first reported by Variety, and they encouraged employees to take advantage of identity protection services being offered.

Their concern underscores the severity of the breach, which experts say is the first major attack on a US company to use a highly destructive class of malicious software that is designed to make computer networks unable to operate.

Government investigators led by the FBI are considering multiple suspects in the attack, including North Korea, according to a US national security official with knowledge of the investigation.

The FBI said Tuesday that it was working with its counterparts in Sony's home country of Japan in the investigation.

That comes after it warned US businesses on Monday about hackers' use of malicious software and suggested ways to defend themselves. The warning said some of the software used by the hackers had been compiled in Korean, but it did not discuss any possible connection to North Korea.

Sony's Troubles

The hack, which was launched Nov. 24, affected only computers with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows software, so Sony employees using Apple Inc. Macs, including many in the marketing department, had not been affected, according to the person familiar with Sony's operations, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the attack.

Sony Pictures Entertainment shut down its internal computer network last week to prevent the data-wiping software from causing further damage, forcing employees to use paper and pen.

The studio has brought some systems back online, focusing first on those from which the company generates revenues, including those involved with marketing and distributing its films and TV shows, according to the person.

The hack comes at a tough time for Sony, following soon after a denial-of-service attack on Sony's PlayStation Network in August. Sony was also victim of a notorious 2011 breach that compromised data of tens of millions of PlayStation Network users.

It also comes just as the company's CEO Kazuo Hirai is trying to grow the entertainment business to help offset losses in its mobile division.

He has been under pressure to prove the segment's growth potential after rejecting a proposal by US hedge fund Third Point to spin it off last year.

Forensic Investigation

People claiming responsibility for this latest attack have posted high-quality digital copies of yet-to-be-released Sony films and what they say is sensitive data about its operations and employees on internet download sites, making them freely available to the public in a series of releases over the past five days.

Sony's holiday musical "Annie," which is due to be released Dec. 19 in the US, was available for download on a popular piracy site Tuesday evening.

Daniel Clemens, chief executive of the cybersecurity firm PacketNinjas, said he had reviewed the files released to date and believed they were stolen from Sony.

He said he found business contracts as well as Social Security numbers, salary information, and medical data about employees.

"This is a horrible compromise," Clemens said.

The US national security official, who asked to remain anonymous, told Reuters on Tuesday that the forensic investigation was in its early stages and that no clear suspects had emerged.

The technology news site Re/code reported Nov. 28 that Sony was investigating whether hackers working on behalf of the North Korean government were responsible for the attack as retribution for the company's backing of the film "The Interview."

The comedy, which is due to be released in the US and Canada on Dec. 25, is about a CIA plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Pyongyang denounced the film as "an act of war" in a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in June.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles; Editing by Mary Milliken, Lisa Shumaker and Rachel Armstrong)

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Sony was the victim of a massive hack this week, and it looks like the company is finally ready to reveal who was responsible for the cyber attack.

Sony will reportedly name North Korea responsible for the hack that resulted in the leaking of confidential information including five films and a detailed list of salaries, according to Recode.

In the wake of the hack, Sony Pictures employees were unable to use their computers and even resorted to using pen and paper.

Sony has been working with security firm Mandiant as well as the FBI to investigate the source of the hack, and Recode reports the announcement naming North Korea responsible "could come as soon as today."

While the exact reason behind the hack still isn't clear, it could likely be connected to one of Sony Picture's latest motion pictures, a film called "The Interview," which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco as reporters who are recruited by the CIA to assassinate the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

North Korea has publically called the upcoming movie an "undisguised sponsoring of terrorism, as well as an act of war."

However, Sony gave a statement to Financial Times reporter Matthew Garrahan that says Re/code's report isn't accurate.

On the other hand, it's common for companies to release statements like this if even a small part of a report is incorrect. There's still a strong chance the Re/code story is correct and Sony will announce North Korea's involvement in the leak.

Reuters also backs up Re/code's story, reporting that the hack was performed using similar tactics North Korea has used against South Korea in the past.

SEE ALSO: LEAKED: Hacked Sony Docs Reveal Top 17 Executives' Multimillion-Dollar Salaries

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A giant hack of Sony Pictures over the holiday from a group referring to themselves as the Guardians of Peace has resulted in a number of leaks ranging from budget and salary numbers to a total of five DVD screeners of movies online. 

Four of the films have not been released in theaters yet.

All together, the movies have been downloaded an estimated 2 million times.

An industry source told Buzzfeed it will cost Sony more to "clean up this mess than what they would lose at the box office." 

Here's the complete list of movies leaked.

1. "Fury"

Brad Pitt's World War II movie has already made $171 million at the box office worldwide. It cost an estimated $68 million to make.

2. "Annie"

Release Date: Dec. 19

The remake starring Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, and Quvenzhané Wallis has been downloaded by more than 206,000 unique IP addresses, according to Variety.

3. "Mr. Turner"

Release date: Dec. 19

The biopic follows the life of British artist J.M.W. Turner and cost an estimated $13 million to make. The film has already been released overseas where it has made over $9 million. 

Total downloads as of Nov. 30: 63,379

4. "Still Alice"

Release date: Dec. 5

Julianne Moore stars as a psychologist who learns she has Alzheimer's disease. The film will also star Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, and Alec Baldwin.

Total downloads as of Nov. 30: 103,832

5. "To Write Love on Her Arms"

Release date: March 2015

The film, starring Kat Dennings (“Two Broke Girls”) will be centered around the true story of Florida teen Renee Yohe who struggled with addiction and depression and helped inspire the non-profit organization of the same name that “presents hope and finds help” for those in similar situations. 

Total downloads as of Nov. 30: 19,946

One upcoming movie that hasn't leaked online is arguably Sony's biggest, controversial "The Interview" in which Seth Rogen and James Franco play journalists recruited by the CIA to assassinate Kim Jong-Un during a trip to North Korea to interview the country's leader.

The country has made it clear it is not happy with the film, asking for a ban of the upcoming movie in a letter to the United Nations.

"To allow the production and distribution of such a film on the assassination of an incumbent head of a sovereign state should be regarded as the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism as well as an act of war," wrote North Korea's U.N. Ambassador Ja Song Nam.

NBC News reports that several U.S. law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, are looking into a possible connection between the hacking and North Korea.

When reached for comment by the BBC, a North Korean government spokesman didn't deny involvement saying, "Wait and see."

According to The Hollywood Reporter, an ex Sony employee or current employee may be responsible.

SEE ALSO: Hacked Sony documents reveal top executive salaries

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Buzzfeed reports an unreleased pilot script for "Breaking Bad" is among the many documents that have been leaked online following a massive hack of Sony Pictures over the holidays. 

A group by the name of Guardians of Peace has taken responsibility for the cyberattack. 

Sony Pictures Television produced the hit AMC series starring Bryan Cranston. 

According to Buzzfeed, “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan wrote the unreleased pilot.  

Early versions of the script that have previously made their way online have included an altered name for Aaron Paul’s character Jesse Pinkman. An early draft of his character was named Marion Alan Dupree. 

A spin-off series, "Better Call Saul,” starring Bob Odenkirk will premiere on AMC in February.

SEE ALSO: All the Sony movies leaked online since massive hack

AND: The internal memo Sony execs sent to staff after the hack

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Here's more fallout from the huge hack at Sony Pictures: leaked salary information for more than 30,000 employees of Deloitte, the New York-based accounting and professional services firm.

So, if you're curious as to what "director level" employees at a big accounting firm get paid, these leaked documents will give you an idea.

General answer: a lot.

The salary information dates back to 2005, so it's a safe bet salaries have gone up since then. A senior manager/director for the enterprise risk services unit in Los Angeles earned $460,000. Dozens of other senior directors in New York, Chicago, and other areas were making over $400,000. And dozens more were making over $350,000.

To recap: Sony Pictures is suffering from an unprecedented hack attack in which hackers shut down Sony's systems and released a whopping 11 terabytes of data grabbed off of various computers. 

Deloitte's information got tangled up in the hack. It was reportedly sitting on the computer of an HR person employed by Sony Pictures who used to work at Deloitte. This person apparently had some of Deloitte's files saved on that computer, reports news site Fusion.

Fusion reporters Kevin Roose and Alexis Madrigal published some of those salaries in a chart:

Other weird things about this hack include talk that it was orchestrated by North Korea in protest of new Seth Rogen and James Franco comedy film by Sony called "The Interview." The movie is about two men trying to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. North Korea had reportedly previously tried to force Sony to stop the release of that film, reports Business Insider's Pamela Engel.

SEE ALSO: 9 Crazy Details About The Huge Sony Hack

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Sony Pictures is recovering from a massive hack, which forced the company to shut down its computer system last Monday. Now everyone, from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to Sony to the international media, is trying to figure out who is behind the attack.

Following suggestions that North Korea was involved in the hack as part of retaliation for a coming (fictional) movie about two American journalists who attempt to kill Kim Jong-un, Re/code reported Wednesday night that Sony was ready to confirm that allegation. 

News of the Sony Pictures hack first emerged on Reddit when a former employee shared a photo taken by a current Sony worker. That worker said the image was showing up on computer screens at Sony Pictures offices around the world. It shows a scary skull illustration, along with a threatening message from the hacking group "#GOP." GOP stands for Guardians of Peace. 

Hackers found documents on Sony Pictures' servers that contained passwords to a range of other services. It looks as if they used those documents to gain access to Twitter accounts controlled by Sony.

Here's one of the tweets posted by the hackers, showing a new illustration:

That image is significant because it gives us a clue about the motives of Guardians of Peace. It accuses Sony Pictures of being "criminals," with Sony's logo Photoshopped onto a gravestone, and a photo of Sony Entertainment Inc. CEO Michael Lynton has been modified to make him look like Dracula. Guardians of Peace seem to be saying that Sony is killing the entertainment industry and that its corporate practises are "criminal."

The images posted by Guardians of Peace suggest a similar motivation to the anti-capitalist ethos of groups like Anonymous and LulzSec. LulzSec famously hacked into Sony Pictures in 2011, a revenge attack for Sony's legal action against a man who hacked into and modified the PlayStation 3 video game console.

Another similarity between Guardians of Peace and LulzSec is that they both target the CEOs of the companies they hacked. In 2011 LulzSec hacked into the website of the Sun newspaper, publishing a fake news report that said Rupert Murdoch, CEO of the company that owns the Sun, had died.

It's not just Photoshopped images that have been posted by the Guardians of Peace hackers, though. They have also talked via email to a small number of journalists. Salted Hash spoke to someone who claimed to represent Guardians of Peace and who made a bizarre claim that alluded to "The Interview," the Sony movie that has angered North Korea:

We are an international organisation including famous figures in the politics and society from several nations such as United States, United Kingdom and France. We are not under direction of any state.

Our aim is not at the film The Interview as Sony Pictures suggests. But it is widely reported as if our activity is related to The Interview. This shows how dangerous film The Interview is. The Interview is very dangerous enough to cause a massive hack attack. Sony Pictures produced the film harming the regional peace and security and violating human rights for money.

The news with The Interview fully acquaints us with the crimes of Sony Pictures. Like this, their activity is contrary to our philosophy. We struggle to fight against such greed of Sony Pictures.

Speaking to The Verge, someone claiming to represent Guardians of Peace shed some light on how the group gained access to Sony's computer network: "Sony doesn't lock their doors, physically, so we worked with other staff with similar interests to get in. Im sorry I can't say more, safety for our team is important."

There are two theories emerging about the Sony Pictures hack. The first is that Guardians of Peace was given access to Sony's servers by a disgruntled employee. The group's public statements seem to lead to this explanation.

A comment posted on Reddit by a former Sony Pictures employee who says he have friends within the company says that it "100% makes sense" that an unhappy employee let hackers into Guardians of Peace. He also says that "in the last year they have cleaned house, and not in a way most employees are happy about ... everyone has been on edge there, morale is terrible, and good people were getting fired left and right."

The other theory is that Guardians of Peace is actually a group of hackers working for North Korea's Unit 121, the collection of skilled hackers who regularly hack into networks in South Korea and the US. There's no proven link here, but security researchers have examined malware that could have been used by Guardians of Peace, and there are similarities with North Korean hacking tactics.

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Hackers leaked more Sony documents Wednesday afternoon, and thousands of "clearly labeled" computer, financial, and social media usernames and passwords were exposed, BuzzFeed News reports.

The exposed Sony passwords were included in a file directory called "Password." The directory held 139 Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, zip files, and PDFs containing thousands of passwords to Sony Pictures’ internal computers, social media accounts, and web services accounts.

Most of the files are plainly labeled with titles like “password list.xls” or “YouTube login passwords.xlsx," according to BuzzFeed News' report.

Besides passwords for the social media accounts of Sony movies like "The Social Network," the passwords of Sony's corporate and research services, passwords to servers and data services, Sony's story department's passwords for Amazon and FedEx, and even personal passwords for places like Google and American Express that apparently were not related to Sony's corporate side.

BuzzFeed News notes that most passwords were "simple combinations of obvious nouns and numbers."

Four of Sony's upcoming movies were leaked this week, and a cyberattack shut down Sony's entire computer network.

A spreadsheet that listed Sony's 17 highest-paid executives and their salaries was also leaked. Leaked documents revealed Hannah Minghella, co-president of production at Sony's Columbia Pictures division, makes $800,000 less per year than her male counterpart, Columbia Pictures co-president of production Michael De Luca.

The FBI has launched an investigation into the hacks with Sony's support.

"The FBI is working with our interagency partners to investigate the recently reported cyber-intrusion at Sony Pictures Entertainment," the FBI said in an emailed statement to Variety. "The targeting of public and private sector computer networks remains a significant threat, and the FBI will continue to identify, pursue and defeat individuals and groups who pose a threat in cyberspace."

SEE ALSO: LEAKED: Hacked Sony Docs Reveal Top 17 Executives' Multimillion-Dollar Salaries

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The hack on Sony Pictures Entertainment is one of the most debilitating ever targeted at US corporate servers.

The Nov 24th incident didn't just result in the theft of proprietary data, including unreleased films and employee information.

It is reportedly the first to use "a highly destructive class of malicious software that is designed to make computer networks unable to operate" into a company's computer system in the United States, according to Reuters.

North Korea has emerged as a leading suspect in the hack. Pyongyang had already vowed "merciless" retaliation over "The Interview," a Sony release in which James Franco and Seth Rogan play talk show hosts that the CIA enlists for an assassination plot against North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. And it has greatly developed its cyber-offensive capabilities over the past decade. An unnamed security source told Reuters that North Korea is currently the "principal suspect."

If the Hermit Kingdom really is involved, it would make the Sony incident a potential turning point in the history of cyber-warfare.

For the past several years, states have started to compromise the computer systems of rival governments and private companies to further political or strategic aims: think China's infiltration of computers at the New York Times in response to a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning reports in 2012 on the private wealth of the country's top leadership, or Russia's "cyber-invasion" of Estonia in 2007.

But according to Dave Aitel, a former NSA research scientist and CEO of the cyber-security firm Immunity, the severity of the Sony attack, along with its nakedly political motives, would put the incident in its own unique category assuming it was North Korea's handiwork.

"If it was North Korea, these attacks against Sony would indicate that foreign powers are going beyond the traditional information-stealing attacks to enforcing their own law against American companies via what we would consider cyber terrorism," Aitel told Business Insider by email. "It would be a watershed moment in how the world handles cyber policy and reaction."

Aitel says the hacks are potentially  "a ‘near red-line moment’" since they represent the kind of incident that would almost require a US policy response assuming a rival state was behind it. As Aitel says, "This is the first demonstration of what the military would call Destructive Computer Network Attack (CNA) against a US Corporation on US soil ... a broad escalation in cyberwarfare tactics" that would demand some kind of American response.

It would also signal an increased willingness for North Korea to deploy its developing cyber-offensive capabilities against American targets.

An August 2014 report from Hewitt Packard Security Research explained Pyongyang's longstanding policy of attempting ot integrate cyber attacks into its doctrine of "asymmetrical warfare"— namely, North Korea's attempts at closing the defense gap with its more conventionally capable enemies, like South Korea and the United States, in whatever ways it can.

"Cyber warfare allows North Korea to leverage the Internet’s inherent flaws for offensive purposes while maintaining its defenses, primarily via air-gapping its most critical networks from the outside world," the report explains.

To that end, North Korea established a group of hackers within its military special forces architecture, called Unit 121, that is trained in a hotel in eastern China. Early results were alarming: as early as 2004, North Korea "reportedly gained access to 33 of 80 South Korean military wireless communication networks;" in 2006, "an attack on the US State Department originating in the East Asia-Pacific region coincided with U.S.-North Korea negotiations over the regime’s nuclear missile testing."

There's evidence that North Korea was attempting ambitious attacks on private sector entities as well. According to the HP report, in February of 2013, a private security firm called Solutionary recorded 11,000 "touches," or electronic attempts to steal deal, on "a single financial institution," all originating from North Korean IP addresses. Solutionary noted that North Korean IPs only attempted 200 touches a month at a time, suggesting this rapid uptick was part of a concerted attack on the institution, which goes unnamed in HP's report.

North Korea has been developing its hacking capabilities from the safety of a web infrastructure that's largely cut off from the rest of the world. And it might feel like it can afford to gamble a bit, given successful nuclear tests and rocket launches in the last couple of years. The international community responded with trade sanctions and a policy of diplomatic isolation — but not the point where the regime's control over the country has ever been all that seriously in question.

It would be unsurprising if North Korea believed it could get away with something of the Sony hack's magnitude. The question now is how the US might respond if Pyongyang's responsibility is more conclusively proven.

Michael B. Kelley contributed to this report.

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SEOUL (Reuters) - Despite its poverty and isolation, North Korea has poured resources into a sophisticated cyber-warfare cell called Bureau 121, defectors from the secretive state said as Pyongyang came under the microscope for a crippling hack into computers at Sony Pictures Entertainment.

A North Korean diplomat has denied Pyongyang was behind the attack that was launched last month but a U.S. national security source said it was a suspect.

Defectors from the North have said Bureau 121, staffed by some of the most talented computer experts in the insular state, is part of the General Bureau of Reconnaissance, an elite spy agency run by the military. They have said it is involved in state-sponsored hacking, used by the Pyongyang government to spy on or sabotage its enemies.

Pyongyang has active cyber-warfare capabilities, military and software security experts have said. Much of it is targeted at the South, technically still in a state of war with North Korea. But Pyongyang has made no secret of its hatred of the United States, which was on the South's side in the 1950-53 Korean War.

Military hackers are among the most talented, and rewarded, people in North Korea, handpicked and trained from as young as 17, said Jang Se-yul, who studied with them at North Korea's military college for computer science, or the University of Automation, before defecting to the South six years ago.

Speaking to Reuters in Seoul, he said the Bureau 121 unit comprises about 1,800 cyber-warriors, and is considered the elite of the military.

"For them, the strongest weapon is cyber. In North Korea, it’s called the Secret War," Jang said.

One of his friends works in an overseas team of the unit, and is ostensibly an employee of a North Korean trading firm, Jang said. Back home, the friend and his family have been given a large state-allocated apartment in an upscale part of Pyongyang, Jang said.

"No one knows ... his company runs business as usual. That’s why what he does is scarier," Jang said. "My friend, who belongs to a rural area, could bring all of his family to Pyongyang. Incentives for North Korea’s cyber experts are very strong ... they are rich people in Pyongyang."

He said the hackers in Bureau 121 were among the 100 students who graduate from the University of Automation each year after five years of study. Over 2,500 apply for places at the university, which has a campus in Pyongyang, behind barbed wire.

"They are handpicked," said Kim Heung-kwang, a former computer science professor in North Korea who defected to the South in 2004, referring to the state hackers. "It is a great honor for them. It is a white-collar job there and people have fantasies about it."

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The technology news site Re/code reported on Wednesday that Sony intends to name North Korea as the source of the attack. But when asked about the Re/code report, a Sony spokeswoman said no announcement from the studio was coming. The company declined comment on Thursday.

Sony Pictures, a unit of Japan's Sony Corp, is the distributor of "The Interview," a forthcoming comedy featuring a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. North Korea has described the film as an "act of war".

Last year, more than 30,000 PCs at South Korean banks and broadcasting companies were hit by a similar attack that cybersecurity researchers widely believe was launched from North Korea.

Months later, the South Korean government's online presence was targeted, with the president's website defaced with a banner reading "Long live General Kim Jong Un, president of reunification!"

Neither attack was particularly sophisticated, but South Korean authorities said North Korea was to blame, even though 'hacktivist' groups - online activists who hack high-profile targets in order to spread political messages - first appeared to claim responsibility.

Those attacks used rudimentary but effective malware which security researchers later dubbed DarkSeoul.

Also known as the DarkSeoul Gang, the hackers have been involved in a five-year spree against South Korean targets, according to a report last year by computer security firm Symantec, which estimated the group included 10 to 50 hackers and described it as "unique" in its ability to carry out high-profile and damaging attacks over several years.

Some security experts have cast doubt on North Korean involvement in the attack on Sony, citing the publicity-seeking hacktivist style of the attacks. However, the use of an unknown name by the group behind the Sony attacks, "Guardians of Peace", is similar to previous attacks by the DarkSeoul gang.

It remains unclear if the DarkSeoul gang are outsiders working on behalf of North Korea, or some of Pyongyang's troops in the isolated country's own 'cyber army'.

(Additional reporting by Jim Finkle and Ron Grover; Editing by Tony Munroe and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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Sony Pictures is currently recovering from a massive hack, which forced the company to shut down its computer system last Monday. Now everyone, from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to Sony to the international media, is trying to figure out who is behind the attack.

Following suggestions that North Korea was involved in the hack as part of retaliation for an upcoming movie about two American journalists who attempt to kill Kim Jong-un, Re/code reported Wednesday night that Sony was ready to confirm that allegation. 

News of the Sony Pictures hack first emerged on Reddit when a former employee shared a photo taken by a current Sony worker. They claimed that the image was showing up on computer screens at Sony Pictures offices around the world. It shows a scary skull illustration, along with a threatening message from hacking group "#GOP." GOP stands for Guardians of Peace. 

Hackers found documents on Sony Pictures' servers that contained passwords to a range of other services. It looks like they used those documents to gain access to Twitter accounts controlled by Sony.

Here's one of the tweets posted by the hackers, showing a new illustration:

That image is significant because it gives us a clue about the motives of Guardians of Peace. It accuses Sony Pictures of being "criminals," with Sony's logo Photoshopped onto a gravestone, and a photo of Sony Entertainment Inc. CEO Michael Lynton has been modified to make him look like Dracula. Guardians of Peace seem to be saying that Sony is killing the entertainment industry, and that its corporate practises are "criminal."

The images posted by Guardians of Peace suggest a similar motivation to the anti-capitalist ethos of groups like Anonymous and LulzSec. LulzSec famously hacked into Sony Pictures in 2011, a revenge attack for Sony's legal action against a man who hacked into and modified the PlayStation 3 game console.

Another similarity between Guardians of Peace and LulzSec is that they both target the CEOs of the companies they hack. In 2011 the group hacked into the website of the Sun newspaper, publishing a fake news report claiming that Rupert Murdoch, CEO of the company that owns the Sun, had died.

It's not just Photoshopped images that have been posted by the Guardians of Peace hackers, though. They have also talked via email to a small number of journalists. Salted Hash spoke to someone who claims to represent Guardians of Peace, and they made a bizarre claim that alluded to "The Interview," the Sony movie that has angered North Korea:

We are an international organisation including famous figures in the politics and society from several nations such as United States, United Kingdom and France. We are not under direction of any state.

Our aim is not at the film The Interview as Sony Pictures suggests. But it is widely reported as if our activity is related to The Interview. This shows how dangerous film The Interview is. The Interview is very dangerous enough to cause a massive hack attack. Sony Pictures produced the film harming the regional peace and security and violating human rights for money.

The news with The Interview fully acquaints us with the crimes of Sony Pictures. Like this, their activity is contrary to our philosophy. We struggle to fight against such greed of Sony Pictures.

Speaking to The Verge, someone claiming to represent Guardians of Peace shed some light on how the group gained access to Sony's computer network: "Sony doesn't lock their doors, physically, so we worked with other staff with similar interests to get in. Im sorry I can't say more, safety for our team is important"

There are two theories emerging about the Sony Pictures hack. The first is that Guardians of Peace was given access to Sony's servers by a disgruntled employee. The group's public statements seem to lead to this explanation.

A comment posted on Reddit by a former Sony Pictures employee who claims to have friends within the company says that it "100% makes sense" that an unhappy employee let hackers into Guardians of Peace. He also claims that "in the last year they have cleaned house, and not in a way most employees are happy about...everyone has been on edge there, morale is terrible, and good people were getting fired left and right."

The other theory is that Guardians of Peace is actually a group of hackers working for North Korea's Unit 121, the collection of skilled hackers who regularly hack into networks in South Korea and the US. There's no proven link here, but security researchers have examined malware that could have been used by Guardians of Peace, and there are similarities with North Korean hacking tactics.

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North Korea denies responsibility for the the massive hack that forced Sony Pictures to shut down its computer system in late November, but called it a "righteous deed,"The New York Times reports, quoting a spokesman of the country's National Defense Commission. 

Hackers leaked employee salary and social security information, as well the video files for five upcoming movies — releasing an estimated 11 terabytes of data. 

Although the spokesperson said North Korea didn't know "for what wrongdoings [Sony] became the target of the attack," he speculated that it "might be a righteous deed of the supporters and sympathizers" of the country who want to help "put an end to US imperialism."  

North Korea also called out the Sony-produced movie "The Interview," which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco plotting to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The country had previously called the movie an "act of war" and in this new statement acknowledges it as "a film abetting a terrorist act while hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership" of North Korea.

The movie will be released in the US on December 25, and in June, North Korea threatened "merciless counter-measures" if the movie came out. 

Security experts call the enormous Sony hack"an unparalleled and well planned crime, carried out by an organized group."

The US should "know that there are a great number of supporters and sympathizers with [North Korea] all over the world" and that "the righteous reaction will get stronger to smash the evil doings," the statement continued, according to The Wall Street Journal.  

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