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NSA Links WannaCry To North Korea (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Washington Post: The National Security Agency has linked the North Korean government to the creation of the WannaCry computer worm that affected more than 300,000 people in some 150 countries last month, according to U.S. intelligence officials. The assessment, which was issued internally last week and has not been made public, is based on an analysis of tactics, techniques and targets that point with "moderate confidence" to North Korea's spy agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, according to an individual familiar with the report. The assessment states that "cyber actors" suspected to be "sponsored by" the RGB were behind two versions of WannaCry, a worm that was built around an NSA hacking tool that had been obtained and posted online last year by an anonymous group calling itself the Shadow Brokers. Though the assessment is not conclusive, the preponderance of the evidence points to Pyongyang. It includes the range of computer Internet protocol addresses in China historically used by the RGB, and the assessment is consistent with intelligence gathered recently by other Western spy agencies. It states that the hackers behind WannaCry are also called "the Lazarus Group," a name used by private-sector researchers.
How convenient
Honestly such hypocrisy and double standards - the nsa hacks get leaked all the time and used for evil but when its another government doing it everyone must get up in arms about it! But as the dumbo in chief always says, its #fakesnews don't believe it folks!
I don't beleive anything three letter agencies say any more about this stuff. It's already leaked that they have stockpiled these sorts of voilnerabilities and it was also shown in Wikileaks that they can and do impersonate other countries.
How do we know this isn't the Military Industrial complex trying to secure more lucrative sales?
They are, the NSA, they gave away the vulnerability. They didn't warn M$ when they found the vulnerability. They didn't warn M$ as soon as their weapon was stolen.
Of course there is no reason to believe any official statements made by them, but the least they should do in this case is to shut up.
Oh wait, is Russia no longer the flavor of the month now that they realize the bogus claims won't stick?
Guess it's time to shoo up a new boogey man.
The 'agenda' is news media needing something to print.
- look, studies come & go. Conversations about X and blaming Y happen all the time. ALL the time. But now in the immediate digital news age, if something get's released it is suddenly considered 'real and important'. In the general day-to-day stuff this is 'just another report' and even if factual, is hardly an agenda in itself. I found my wife's secret cookie stash... do I pursue it or is it just a tiny blip on the larger radar screen? I'll do something about it when & only when... I'm not allowed to have cookies myself :P