WikiLeaks has republished the Sony data from last year’s hacking scandal, making all the documents and emails “fully searchable” with a Google-style search engine. The move provides much easier access to the stolen information.

The hacked Sony documents were originally not much more than hard-drive images converted into common compressed file formats, meaning that anyone curious about the information could download it from a filesharing service like BitTorrent. But, if interested in company emails or financial data, users needed to wade through spreadsheet-like directory trees. 

The network was crippled. Days before Thanksgiving, Sony Pictures employees had logged onto computers that flashed a grim message from a hacker group calling itself Guardians of Peace.

Soon personal information for tens of thousands of current and former workers was dumped online, including Social Security numbers and the purported salaries of top executives. Five Sony-produced movies appeared on file-sharing websites. Thousands of private, and sometimes embarrassing, emails hit the Internet. More than six weeks later, the studio's network is still down — and is expected to remain so for a few weeks, as techs work to rebuild and get it fully back online. 

Cybersecurity experts are questioning the FBI's claim that North Korea is responsible for the hack that crippled Sony Pictures. Kurt Stammberger, a senior vice president with cybersecurity firm Norse, told that his company has data that doubts some of the FBI's findings.

Sony was not just hacked, this is a company that was essentially nuked from the inside. While Norse is not involved in the Sony case, it has done its own investigation. It's worth noting that the original demand of the hackers was for money from Sony in exchange for not releasing embarrassing information. 

Sony Pictures' "The Interview," a comedy about assassinating North Korea's leader, may be the most talked-about movie of the season. But chances are, you won't be able to see it. 

Sony said in a statement that it is canceling release of the film, following a series of threats made over the past few weeks, including promise of an attack on theaters screening the film. Meanwhile, citing unnamed officials aware of the investigation, it was reported the US government has evidence North Korea is behind the attack. Sony, meanwhile, said it had no further plans for the film's release.

The crime-fighting agency tells US businesses to stay alert because of some particularly nasty malware in the wild. The FBI has warned that hackers have used malware to launch destructive attacks against businesses in the United States, following a devastating attack on the networks of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

In a five-page confidential "flash" warning sent to businesses, the FBI provided technical details about the malware, but did not mention the corporate victim by name. According to the advisory, the malware is particularly violent – overwriting data on hard drives to make them little more than bricks while also closing down networks. 

Reports that Sony Pictures has been hacked have been trickling in this morning, after a thread appeared on Reddit claiming all computers at the company were offline due to a hack. An image appeared on all employee’s computers demanding their “requests be met” along with links to leaked data.

The Reddit user that posted the thread posted a year ago that they worked at Sony Pictures. The ZIP files mentioned in the images contain a list of filenames of a number of documents pertaining to financial records along with private keys for access to servers. They said that “a single server was compromised and the attack was spread from there.”