The Sony Hack

North Korea vs. Hollywood

By: Shane Larson

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

How a Seth Rogen comedy triggered the most devastating corporate cyberattack in history — and the first time a nation-state went to war against a private company over a movie.

In November 2014, employees at Sony Pictures Entertainment arrived at work to find a grinning red skeleton on their screens and a message from a group calling itself the Guardians of Peace. Within hours, the company's entire network was destroyed. Within weeks, the full scope became clear: terabytes of stolen data, unreleased films on pirate sites, executive emails splashed across front pages, and the personal information of 47,000 employees exposed to the world.

But the Sony hack was never just about data theft. It was about The Interview — a comedy about assassinating Kim Jong-un. When the hackers escalated to threats of physical violence against theaters, Sony pulled the film. A foreign dictator had effectively censored an American corporation. President Obama called it a mistake. The FBI blamed North Korea. And the cybersecurity world was never the same.

Inside this book, you'll discover:

• How Sony greenlit a comedy about killing a sitting world leader — and ignored every warning
• The secret world of North Korea's Bureau 121 hackers — a cyber army built in one of the world's poorest countries
• The staged data dump strategy that kept Sony in permanent crisis for weeks
• The leaked emails that exposed Hollywood's racism, pay gaps, and petty feuds
• The devastating human cost to 47,000 employees whose lives were upended
• How theater chains caved to terrorist threats — and why Sony ultimately blinked
• President Obama's unprecedented public rebuke of a private company's decision
• The FBI investigation, the attribution debate, and the evidence that divided the cybersecurity community
• How the Sony hack paved the way for WannaCry, NotPetya, and the age of nation-state cyber warfare

This book is for you if:

• You remember the Sony hack headlines and want the full, unvarnished story
• You're interested in cybersecurity, corporate crises, or geopolitics
• You want to understand how a nation with almost no internet became a cyber superpower
• You enjoy narrative nonfiction about technology, espionage, and power
• You're a business leader who wants to understand nation-state cyber threats
• You've read other titles in the Digital Outlaws series and want the next installment

From the author of Phone Phreaks: The Original Hackers, Cap'n Crunch: The Whistle That Started It All, and The Mt. Gox Collapse — the story of the cyberattack that changed everything.