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The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is also
investigating the incident, said one of the people, who were not
authorized to publicly discuss efforts to deal with the attack.
The computer systems at the Sony Corp unit went down last Monday
after displaying a red skull and the phrase "Hacked By #GOP,"
which reportedly stands for Guardians of Peace, the Los Angeles
Times reported.
Technicians are making headway in repairing damage caused by the
attack and expect to have the email systems back online Monday,
said the source who commented on the FBI investigation.
Sony executives have declined to comment on the scope of the
attack, though emails have been bouncing back with messages
asking senders to call employees because the system was
"experiencing a disruption."
Representatives with FireEye and the FBI declined comment.
Mandiant is an incident response firm that helps victims of
breaches identify the extent of attacks, clean up networks and
restore systems. The firm has handled some of the largest
breaches uncovered to date, including the 2013 holiday attack on
Target Corp.
Technology news website Re/code reported on Friday that Sony was
investigating to determine whether hackers working on behalf of
North Korea have launched the attack in retribution for the
studio's backing of the film "The Interview," which is to be
released on Dec. 25 in the United States and Canada.
The movie is a comedy about a CIA attempt to assassinate North
Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The Pyongyang government denounced
the film as "undisguised sponsoring of terrorism, as well as an
act of war" in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
(Reporting by Jim Finkle and Ron Grover; Editing by Eric Walsh,
Bernard Orr)
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