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Sony Hackers Demand 'The Interview' Not Be Released, PlayStation Store Attacked

Sony Hackers Demand 'The Interview' Not Be Released, PlayStation Store Attacked
A man passes by a poster advertising Sony Pictures movie
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A man passes by a poster advertising Sony Pictures movie

LOS ANGELES/BOSTON: A group that claimed to be responsible for the massive computer hack at Sony Pictures Entertainment demanded that the company cancel the release of "The Interview," a comedy that depicts an assassination plot against North Korea's leader.

A letter posted on a file-sharing site on Monday asked Sony to "stop immediately showing the movie of terrorism which can break the regional peace and cause the War!" It was signed by GOP, the nickname for the "Guardians of Peace" group that says it is responsible for a cyber attack at Sony that began Nov. 24.

Pyongyang has denounced "The Interview" as "undisguised sponsoring of terrorism, as well as an act of war" in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

People close to the investigation of the Sony hacking have told Reuters that North Korea is a principal suspect, but a North Korean diplomat has denied that his nation is involved.

The letter included links to downloads of several gigabytes of new data purported to have been stolen from Sony. Reuters was not able to verify whether the letter or documents were released by the same group that revealed other Sony documents.

The letter also said the GOP was not involved in a threatening e-mail sent to Sony staff on Friday. That e-mail claimed to be from the group.

A Sony spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment. Sony Pictures Entertainment is a unit of Japan's Sony Corp.

"The Interview," starring James Franco and Seth Rogen, is scheduled for release in the United States and Canada on December 25. The studio is holding advance screenings for media and others.

Sony's PlayStation store victim of cyber attack

Sony Corp's PlayStation online store suffered an outage for about 2 hours after a cyber attack on Monday, the Financial Times reported, without citing sources.

We are aware that users are having issues connecting to PSN. Thanks for your patience as we investigate.

— Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) December 8, 2014

PlayStation Network was mostly down from 8:52 a.m. to 11:18 a.m. Tokyo time, the newspaper quoted Sony Computer Entertainment as saying.

Sony has not received any report that information has been leaked or stolen, the daily said. Sony was not immediately available for comment.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.