Still reeling from a cyberattack that crippled the studio three weeks ago, top executives from Sony Pictures Entertainment have assured employees that the company would survive, it was reported today.
“This won’t take us down,” Michael Lynton, the studio’s chief executive and chairman, said Monday in remarks at an all-staff meeting at the studio lot in Culver City, a person who was there told the Los Angeles Times. “You should not be worried about the future of this studio.”
Sony staffers met in two groups on the company’s lot Monday afternoon for about 20 minutes each, according to The Times.
The studio’s co-chairman, Amy Pascal, spoke first, taking time to apologize for insensitive remarks she made in emails that were unleashed on the Web in the wake of the cyberattack. She also commended employees for persevering through the difficult situation, The Times reported.
“It is your incredible efforts and perseverance that will get us through this,” she said.
Following the attack, which was made public Nov. 24, the hackers, calling themselves Guardians of Peace, released troves of internal documents containing information that included employees’ Social Security numbers and executives’ salaries. The breach is expected to cost Sony tens of millions of dollars in computer security upgrades and measures to control the damage.
Federal investigators suspect that North Korea may be behind the attack. The country has condemned Sony’s upcoming Seth Rogen-James Franco comedy “The Interview,” which depicts a fictionalized assassination attempt on dictator Kim Jong Un.
