As federal officials dig into who is responsible for a hack on Sony Pictures, the FBI in San Diego is aiding the investigation, officials confirmed.
NBC News confirmed Wednesday a federal investigation found North Korea was responsible for the cyber attack. This news comes as the studio decided to pull the Christmas Day release of the film, "The Interview."
San Diego County-based computer security specialist Dan Tentler, who according to USA Today downloaded some of the stolen Sony files, tweeted last week the FBI visited his home.
NBC 7 spoke to Tentler Wednesday night. He wouldn’t discuss the FBI involvement but did say this hack exposes, once again, Sony’s lack of cyber security. Tentler said the security world is looking at how to keep it from happening to them.
"The security community is interested in making sure that if mistakes were made that were easy to spot, that other people don't make the same mistakes,” said Tentler who is the co-founder of Carbon Dynamics.
An FBI spokesperson says agents in San Diego are supporting this investigation and are working collaboratively with its partners to investigate.
“This is an interesting hack because it’s not being carried out for financial gain," explained ESET Senior Security Researcher Stephen Cobb. "It’s very different from the Target breach, where credit card numbers were stolen. This is a group that has an agenda and apparently it is a political agenda."
Sony announced it would drop the Christmas Day release of “The Interview” after some of the country’s largest theater chains said they would not be showing the movie. The same group who claimed to hack Sony, Guardians of Peace, threatened violence, indicating that the world would be full of fear as on 9/11.
The White House said Thursday it considers the hacking a "serious national security matter" and will plan a "proportional response" when investigators are sure who is responsible. The Obama administration has not confirmed publicly that North Korea was involved.
