Hackers who have targeted Sony Pictures are threatening a 9/11-style attack on movie theaters at the opening of “The Interview.”
According to Fox News, the hackers, who call themselves “Guardians of Peace,” sent a warning in an email to reporters: “We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places ‘The Interview’ be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to,” the message says. “Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time. (If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.) Whatever comes in the coming days is called by the greed of Sony Pictures Entertainment. All the world will denounce the SONY.”
“The Interview,” starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, is a comedy about a plot to assassinate North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un.
North Korea has denied a role in the hack but said it "might be a righteous deed of the supporters and sympathizers."
Hackers have leaked budgets to Sony films, salary information of top executives, and employee medical records and social security numbers.
James A. Lewis, senior fellow and the director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies,
said an attack is unlikely, The Washington Post reported.
"The North Koreans are famous for making really bombastic, over the top threats," Lewis said, according to the Post. “They'll continue to make threats, but they aren't going to do a cyber-9/11.”
He said the bigger concern is that the hackers may push the U.S. government to aggressively respond.
Twitter users posted mixed reactions.
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