The Carnage from the Sony Hack Continues with Leaked Corporate Emails

A couple of big names stand out when it comes to hacking attacks, but the recent Sony hack has really taken the cake. The GOP, who call themselves the “Guardians of Peace,” have exposed a ton of details to the public, including the company’s budget, their plans for layoffs, and 3,800 employee Social Security numbers. Now, they’ve released even more information; this time, it’s leaked personal emails, and judging from the content of them, Sony never wanted them to see the light of day.

This can be a nightmare for some people, especially business owners. A personal email is only supposed to be seen by the recipient, so the tone of the message varies depending on who it is meant for. When you’re dealing with your team, you might use language that might be seen as inappropriate when dealing with the public.

This begs the question, “If your personal emails were made public, what would the consequences be?”

For the unfortunate executives at Sony, they aren’t looking pretty. Co-chairman Amy Pascal, Producer Scott Rudin, and several others have had their leaked emails shown to the public. Their true natures as cruel, unfair and even racist, are revealed, which is a major embarrassment for the company and all individuals involved. Here are what a few upset Sony employees have to say, according to Gawker:

From anonymous Sony employee #1:

There's a strange dichotomy of encouraging us to be fiscally responsible, but then upper management allows certain talent and filmmakers to bleed us dry with their outlandish requests for private jets, wardrobe and grooming stylists- and are surprised when they are asked to work more than 5 hours to promote their film.

From anonymous Sony employee #2:

Moving a major work force to foreign countries is taking job opportunities away from lots of employees at Sony Pictures Imageworks. Families are separated, people are forced to leave the country, and workers don't have any hopes in their future with the company any more. It is sad to see that the company doesn't care about us at all.

To top it all off, here’s a message from Rudin to Pascal regarding her decision to pull Sony out of a Steve Jobs biopic Rudin was involved in:

You’ve destroyed your relationships with half the town over how you’ve behaved on this movie, and if you don’t think it’s true, wait and see... you don’t deserve one exhalation of breath on your behalf. You’ve behaved abominably and it will be a very, very long time before I forget what you did to this movie and what you’ve put all of us through.

There’s also the email where Rudin refers to Angelina Jolie as a “minimally talented spoiled brat,” while Pascal unwisely uttered some racially insensitive comments concerning the United States President. It’s not something that your business wants to be remembered for.

Out of all of the leaked emails, though, is one which is a sure sign of poor relations between Sony’s executives and their IT department:

@I work in IT and while I feel we have a very strong CIO (strongest in 9 years that I have been here at SPE) that is doing a good job. The next level of management below the CIO needs some work. They don't even seem to get along.

If there’s one thing we understand at Directive, it’s that quality relations with IT can prevent disasters, and the lackluster state of Sony’s network security probably suffered from the lack of communication between the upper-level management and the IT staff. This situation could have easily been prevented if Sony had put forth the effort to optimize network security instead of providing unnecessary luxuries for special guests.

All of this might make you question your own network security, which isn’t a bad thing. You can never be too careful when dealing with sensitive corporate information. Directive can equip your business with the tools to keep hackers at bay. Give us a call at 607.433.2200 to learn more.