Cyberattack may have cost Sony $100 mn

The recent and much-talked cyberattack on Sony Pictures may have cost the company around $100 mn and compromised approximately 100 terabytes of data, making it the most prolific in a chequered year for the security industry, according to Trend Micro’s annual security round-up report, 'Magnified Losses, Amplified Need for Cyber-Attack Preparedness'.

The report stated that 2014 saw a switch to “quality over quantity” by hackers, as cyberattacks became increasingly more complex in order to evade detection.  Quality over quantity was a resounding theme in the 2014 threat landscape, reflected in part by the overall volume of malicious components the report identified and blocked throughout the year.

Web threats largely remained multicomponent in nature. However, as security events proved, attackers continued to fine tune their strategies even if these were not original to obtain not just more victims but more desirable ones.

“The past year was unprecedented in terms of the size and scope of cyber-attacks as evidenced by the Sony situation,” said Dhanya Thakkar, Managing Director, India & SEA, Trend Micro. “Unfortunately, this will most likely be a ‘sneak peek’ of what is to come.”

All of the reports on who were responsible for the Sony Pictures hack have so far been inconclusive. Some believe it was an insider job akin to the Amtrak incident motivated by reasons like money, ideology, coercion, or ego. Others, meanwhile, chose to lay the blame on hacktivists. At the end of the day though, it does not matter who was at fault.