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NSA Hack of N. Korea Convinced Obama NK Was Behind Sony Hack

Posted by timothy on from the that's-how-clever-it-was dept.

Mike Lape links to a NYTimes piece which says "The evidence gathered by the 'early warning radar' of software painstakingly hidden to monitor North Korea's activities proved critical in persuading President Obama to accuse the government of Kim Jong-un of ordering the Sony attack, according to the officials and experts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the classified N.S.A. operation." From the linked article: For about a decade, the United States has implanted “beacons,” which can map a computer network, along with surveillance software and occasionally even destructive malware in the computer systems of foreign adversaries. The government spends billions of dollars on the technology, which was crucial to the American and Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear program, and documents previously disclosed by Edward J. Snowden, the former security agency contractor, demonstrated how widely they have been deployed against China. ... The extensive American penetration of the North Korean system also raises questions about why the United States was not able to alert Sony as the attacks took shape last fall, even though the North had warned, as early as June, that the release of the movie “The Interview,” a crude comedy about a C.I.A. plot to assassinate the North’s leader, would be “an act of war.”

6 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Stands to reason by SternisheFan · · Score: 5, Interesting
    According to John McAfee, N. Korea had nothing to do with the Sony hack.

    Anti-virus pioneer John McAfee claims to have been in contact with the group of hackers behind the devastating cyber-attack against Sony Pictures and guarantees they are not from North Korea.

    Speaking to IBTimes UK about his current roster of security startups under his Future Tense brand - including secure messaging app Chadder - McAfee spoke about working with the FBI previously but said that, in this case, the agency was "wrong".

    "I can guarantee they are wrong. It has to do with a group of hackers - I will not name them - who are civil libertarians and who hate the confinement the restrictions the music industry and the movie industry has placed on art and so they are behind it."

    http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/john-...

  2. And why are you telling us? by gnasher719 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So they have a secret capability to spy on North Korea, and they tell us because Sony got hacked? So now North Korea knows about it and probably will do something about it? That sounds an incredibly stupid action to me.

    In WWII, when the Brits cracked German encryption, the went to incredible lengths to create believable stories how they found secret German operations that they discovered through decrypted Enigma messages.

    1. Re:And why are you telling us? by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I didn't RTFA, but it would be funny (or smart) if it was all BS and the US didn't have this capability. How many man hours will be wasted trying to find and fix it on North Korea's part. They may even execute some of their top people for not finding a non-existent security hole. Not that I personally find that a good thing, but I'm sure the NSA would.

    2. Re:And why are you telling us? by mentil · · Score: 3, Interesting

      However, this wouldn't fool the NK government, if they're not actually responsible for the hack, because they're totalitarian enough to KNOW they weren't responsible. In which case, who is this 'leak' intended to fool? Rhetorical question, it's the American public.

      Alternate option: NK was responsible but the confidential sources are proud enough of their jobs to want to toot the NSA's horn, and don't think NK can actually do anything to stop the hacking, even if they broadly know how they were hacked. Evidence of the Sony hack was found in a counter-hacking performed after the Sony hack, probably using already-existing implants, or was only examined after the Sony hack. The unusual degree of interest that Obama had in the Sony hack suggests that the NSA might've been given an unusual degree of interest in the matter as well, so it's plausible they would've found something beyond what the legal authorities would've.

      --
      Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    3. Re:And why are you telling us? by AchilleTalon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Another alternate opinion, since we are at this. NK was responsible, the NSA actually as planted beacons and by spreading the information they expect the NK to take action to secure its systems and upgrade the old technology beacons doing so. Wiping the old OS and technology and replace it with newer systems and pieces of software already contaminated by the NSA. NSA is then forcing an upgrade to its own beacons.

      --
      Achille Talon
      Hop!
  3. Snowden leaks from yesterday by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Surely the most obvious answer is that this is an NSA hack, and they threw the blame at North Korea, because a) Snowden leak yesterday reveals NSA does these false flag ops. b) NSA is defending its mass surveillance charges so it needs a scapegoat right now. c) Sony is a TV company and thus good for marketing to have them on your side.

    http://boingboing.net/2015/01/18/ecstatic-nsa-spooks-delight-in.html

    "... they routinely seek to cover their tracks or to lay fake ones instead. In technical terms, the ROC lays false tracks as follows: After third-party computers are infiltrated, the process of exfiltration can begin -- the act of exporting the data that has been gleaned. But the loot isn't delivered directly to ROC's IP address. Rather, it is routed to a so-called Scapegoat Target. That means that stolen information could end up on someone else's servers, making it look as though they were the perpetrators. "