Article content continued

Sony, with no chains to carry the movie, caved and killed the opening date. Is this a sensible and responsible reaction to the equivalent of a terrorist threat? Or is it a sacrifice of freedom of expression and free enterprise by weak-kneed corporate executives to a cyberthreat that’s impossible to evaluate but likely bogus?

Put me down in the latter camp.

Read more …

[/np_storybar]

A U.S. official says North Korea has been linked to the unprecedented act of cyberwarfare against Sony Pictures that exposed tens of thousands of sensitive documents and escalated to threats of terrorist attacks that ultimately drove the studio to cancel all release plans for the film at the heart of the hack, The Interview.

It remains unclear how the U.S. government will respond to the computer break-in. Until Wednesday, the Obama administration had been saying it was not immediately clear who might have been responsible for the computer break-in. North Korea has publicly denied it was involved.

The attack is possibly the costliest for a U.S. company ever, said Avivah Litan, a cybersecurity analyst at research firm Gartner. “This attack went to the heart and core of Sony’s business — and succeeded,” she said. “We haven’t seen any attack like this in the annals of U.S. breach history.”

Federal investigators believe there is a connection between the Sony Pictures hack and the isolated communist nation, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to openly discuss an ongoing criminal case. Earlier in the day, the besieged company cancelled the Christmas Day release of The Interview, citing the threats of violence against movie theatres and decisions by the largest multiplex chains in North America to pull the film from its screens. Seemingly putting to rest any hope of a delayed theatrical release or a video-on-demand release, Sony Pictures later said it has “no further release plans for the film.”