FBI warns US business of ‘destructive malware’ after Sony attacks

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned US businesses that hackers might have used malicious software to launch a destructive cyberattack in the US, following a devastating breach last week at Sony Pictures Entertainment, Reuters reported.

According to cyber security experts, the malicious software described in the alert appeared to describe the one that affected Sony, perhaps marking the first major destructive cyber attack launched against a company on US soil.

Such attacks had been launched in Asia and the Middle East, but there had been no reports of the kind in the US. The FBI report did not mention how many companies had fallen victim to destructive attacks.

Tom Kellermann, chief cyber security officer with security software maker Trend Micro Inc said he believed the coordinated cyber attack with destructive payloads against a corporation in the US represented a watershed event. He added, geopolitics now served as harbingers for destructive cyberattacks.

There was some technical detail in the five-page, confidential "flash" FBI warning issued to businesses late yesterday about the malicious software used in the attack. It offered advice on how to respond to the malware and asked businesses to contact the FBI if they identified similar malware.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles Times reported that Sony's headaches do not appear to have lessened with copies of some Sony movies appearing online on file sharing websites in the days after the attack. It was not known whether the two problems were related.

Among the titles were the Brad Pitt World War II drama Fury, the musical remake of Annie and the upcoming film Still Alice while copies of Mr. Turner
 and To Write Love on Her Arms had also surfaced.

"The theft of Sony Pictures Entertainment content is a criminal matter, and we are working closely with law enforcement to address it," Sony said in a statement.

Amongst the Sony movies that had leaked on online, Annie was the biggest that had not yet been released, but according to the website TorrentFreak, Fury (still in theaters) was by far the most popular among file-sharers.

Sony, however has declined to comment on the progress of its investigations since it released a statement on 25 November saying, "Sony Pictures Entertainment experienced a system disruption, which we are working diligently to resolve."

As Sony tried to get back online, speculation over how the attack could have happened and who could be responsible was rife.