Was Sony Pictures hacked by North Korea because they are preparing to release a comedy about two journalists trying to assassinate Kim Jong Un?

• The Interview is set to be released by the company in a month
• Involves two reporters recruited by the CIA to kill the dictator
• Their system went down on Monday and the screens went dark
• Reportedly the phrase 'Hacked By #GOP' or Guardians of Peace appeared
• Cyber attackers warned they could release 'secrets' from their servers

By Reuters

Published: 02:01 EST, 30 November 2014 | Updated: 02:03 EST, 30 November 2014

Sony Pictures Entertainment is investigating to determine if hackers working on behalf of North Korea might be responsible for a cyber attack that knocked out the studio's computer network earlier this week, the technology news site Re/code reported.

The attack occurred a month before Sony Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp, is to release 'The Interview.'

The movie is a comedy about two journalists who are recruited by the CIA to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Sony Pictures Entertainment is investigating to determine if hackers from North Korea were responsible for breaking into their server and shutting their computer system down

The Pyongyang government denounced the film as 'undisguised sponsoring of terrorism, as well as an act of war' in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in June.

Representatives of the North Korean mission to the United Nations could not immediately be reached for comment on Saturday.

Sony Pictures' computer system went down on Monday. Before screens went dark, they displayed a red skull and the phrase 'Hacked By #GOP,' which reportedly stands for Guardians of Peace, the Los Angeles Times said.

The hackers also warned they would release 'secrets' stolen from the Sony servers, the Times reported.

The company has accused the hermit kingdom of hacking into their system a month before the release of The Interview - a comedy film about two journalists who are recruited to assassinate Kim Jong Un (pictured)

Re/code said in a report late Friday that Sony and security consultants were investigating the possibility that someone acting on behalf of North Korea, possibly from China, was responsible. Re/code said a link to North Korea had not been confirmed but it had not been ruled out.

A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that Sony Pictures was investigating every possibility, adding no link to North Korea has been uncovered.

Sony acknowledged the computer outage in a statement on Tuesday. Emails to Sony were bouncing back on Saturday with a message asking senders to contact employees by telephone because its email system was 'experiencing a disruption.'

'The Interview,' scheduled for release in the United States on Dec. 25, stars James Franco as the host of a tabloid television show that is enjoyed by Kim, and Seth Rogen as the show's producer. When they are granted a rare interview with Kim, the CIA wants to turn them into assassins.

KCNA, the official news agency in isolationist North Korea, quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman in June as promising a 'merciless counter-measure' if the film is released. The government also wrote to U.S. President Barack Obama asking him to stop it, the Voice of America reported.

The movie, stars James Franco (left) as a host of a tabloid television show and Seth Rogan (right) as the show's producer. They are given a rare interview with the dictator but the CIA tries to turn them into killers