US Links North Korea To Sony Hacking

schwit1 writes Speaking off the record, senior intelligence officials have told the New York Times, CNN, and other news agencies that North Korea was "centrally involved" in the hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment. It is not known how the US government has determined that North Korea is the culprit, though it is known that the NSA has in the past penetrated North Korean computer systems. Previous analysis of the malware that brought down Sony Pictures' network showed that there were marked similarities to the tools used in last year's cyber-attack on South Korean media companies and the 2012 "Shamoon" attack on Saudi Aramco. While there was speculation that the "DarkSeoul" attack in South Korea was somehow connected to the North Korean regime, a firm link was never published.

Comments

Of course they do

[silviuc]

> It is not known how the US government has determined that North Korea is the culprit

Of course it's known. The same way they established that Iraq had chemical weapons. The method is known as "because we say so".

Speaking off the record

[mwvdlee]

Speaking off the record

Let me fix that for you...

Obviously speaking on the record, but with sufficient disclaimers to not be held legally accountable according to literal interpretation of the law

Dubious because facts

[Jesrad]

Marc Rogers disagrees strongly, and poitns at a long list of evidence that make it much more likely that it was a vengeful inside-job badly disguised into a Nork attack for unrelated publicity added-value:
- elements of language that do not fit north-korean lingo
- hardcoded filepaths indicating insider knowledge
- social-network savvyness unlike anything the DPRK ever did
- no mention of The Interview movie until after the possible tie with DPRK was suggested ... and more.

Re:How do we know?

[DoofusOfDeath]

That leads to my question- are you posting from Pyongyang?

Yes, yes I am. After spending years scouring the Internet, my small team of l88t Haxors realized that only one account, on one site, had the propaganda value we needed. It was DoofusOfDeath@slashdot.org. We're sure to get a second serving of rice balls for this exploit! Long live the god Kim Jung Un!

Re:with what?

[Cigarra]

What about Stuxnet? Is that an act of war that merits a "response" from Iran?