A year ago, Sony Pictures Entertainment became the target of a paralyzing computer hack, the first such cyberattack in the history of Hollywood.
It started as what seemed like a prank. Sony staffers arriving on Monday, Nov. 24, found their computers frozen on mocking images of co-chairmen Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal with a menacing message from the previously unknown “Guardians of Peace.”
It ended as an international incident, with the White House accusing North Korea of perpetrating the hack and unleashing the embarrassing leaks of confidential studio emails because of Kim Jong-un’s displeasure with being ridiculed in the Sony comedy “The Interview.”
Federal officials decried the incident as an attack on American “freedom of expression and way of life” and the U.S. seemed to retaliate when the Internet mysteriously went down in North Korea after the FBI accusations.
All because of a movie.
This week, TheWrap takes a closer look at how Sony and Hollywood have changed as a result of this historic attack.
We start the series today with a story that examines changes at the Culver City, Calif., movie studio in the past year with “Inside Sony Pictures a Year After the Hack: ‘It Takes a While to Turn a Ship This Big,’” accompanied by a photo gallery of where the players are now.
Tuesday will bring “How the Sony Hack Changed Hollywood: Fear, Ambivalence and a ‘Dose of Cold Water,’” accompanied by a close look at what has happened to the movies impacted by the information dump of executives’ once-private emails, from “The Interview” to “Spectre” to “
On Wednesday, we talk to cyber-security experts who discuss how well Hollywood has prepared for the next cyber attack.
We hope you learn as much from reading the series as we have in reporting and writing it. Read on.