Why is Sony paying so much attention to fax machines?

If you are keeping your eyes on tech and security news, you probably remember the Sony incident from the end of 2014. In what turned out to be several major leaks, Sony bled all kinds of data that is supposed to be kept safe, ranging from inside business info related to their TV shows and movies to serious info like social security and personal info of former employees.

The aftermath of that hack was a major re-designing of the company’s security network, including one that you probably never saw coming because it involved not implementing new and more advanced defensive technologies to prevent spyware and malware taking hold of the company’s servers, but represents a rollback to a more reliable and secure technology – fax technology.

That’s right. By the words of Michael Lynton, the chief executive of Sony Entertainment “My fax machine is in great use at this point” – when it comes to protection and data safety, it seems that sending a fax is much more reliable than shooting an e-mail.

The main strength fax machines bring to the table is the way they communicate – sending and receiving a fax message this way is a fully analog process that never gets stored on a digital machine or a server. Naturally, this is not the case if you’re using an online fax service such as rcfax or if you send faxes through gmail – these are vulnerable to all malicious attacks regular e-mails are vulnerable to.

The time loss is barely noticeable, according to Mr. Michael “It’s suriprisingly how quickly you can write down something on a piece of paper and shove it into fax” so it’s not like his business suffers because he’s using fax as a method of communication for sensitive data.

He has issued these statements during a live interview with Re/Code senior editor Peter Kafka. You can see the short excerpt where he’s discussing his use of fax machines here

or watch the full interview here.

Matt Gerchow

Matt Gerchow is an author, marketer, inventor, husband, father and yoga enthusiast. He enjoys travel to distant lands , fine wine, time with his family and dinner with friends.