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Sony confirms Lulzsec compromised server data

Sony Pictures says it's working with the FBI to find out the identities of the people who posted confidential data from its Web sites online yesterday.

Erica Ogg Former Staff writer, CNET News
Erica Ogg is a CNET News reporter who covers Apple, HP, Dell, and other PC makers, as well as the consumer electronics industry. She's also one of the hosts of CNET News' Daily Podcast. In her non-work life, she's a history geek, a loyal Dodgers fan, and a mac-and-cheese connoisseur.
Erica Ogg

Sony Pictures tonight confirmed that some of its Web sites were breached yesterday.

In a joint statement, Sony Pictures Chairman and CEO Michael Lynton and Co-chairman Amy Pascal said the company has contacted the FBI in an attempt to find out who was behind the cyberattack.

Yesterday a group of hackers calling themselves Lulzsec brashly taunted Sony on Twitter saying it would "embarrass" the company by posting data stolen from the company's servers. Several hours later the group posted online 150,000 people's passwords, names, e-mail addresses, addresses, and phone numbers from SonyPictures.com and Sony BMG's Web sites in Belgium and the Netherlands. The group claims there was little complexity involved in overcoming the servers' security.

"The cybercrime wave that has affected Sony companies and a number of government agencies, businesses, and individuals in recent months has hit Sony Pictures as well," the Sony statement reads.

In addition to working with federal authorities, Sony Pictures has also hired its own "experts" to conduct a forensic investigation into the breach, according to Lynton and Pascal.

"We deeply regret and apologize for any inconvenience caused to consumers by this cybercrime," they wrote.

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