US Says North Korea 'Directly Responsible' For WannaCry Ransomware Attack (npr.org)

The White House has publicly blamed North Korea for a ransomware attack in May that locked more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries. From a report: In an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal on Monday, Homeland security adviser Tom Bossert writes that after careful investigation, Washington can say that Pyongyang is "directly responsible" for the WannaCry virus. Bossert called the attack in which victims received ransom demands to unlock their computers "cowardly, costly and careless." "The consequences and repercussions of WannaCry were beyond economic," he wrote. "The malicious software hit computers in the U.K.'s health-care sector particularly hard, compromising systems that perform critical work. These disruptions put lives at risk." More details here.

Comments

North Korea and NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

WannaCry is based on EternalBlue which traces back to the NSA so I thing we need to give them credit was well.

Re:North Korea and NSA

[sjames]

THIS!

The BSA developed a cyber weapon it never should have had (it primarily targets civilians) and then managed to mis-place it like a kindergartner's mittens and then it fell into an enemy's hands and got used against us. Why is there not a pair of smoking boots where the NSA used to be standing?

Re:Trump WAR

[bobbied]

Shesh.. So you understand Trump then?

Look, the issue with NK has been brewing for decades. Their rhetoric has been consistent both internally and externally for decades. They have claimed the US was the aggressor (we where not) and that they won the war (they didn't, it was a stalemate because China put troops into the war). They have since claimed that they will eventually restart the war and this time drive the USA away.

Until recently, all this was just saber rattling and everybody knew it. NK had a huge standing army and conventional arms coming out their ears which was basically defensive, but everybody knew they had little offensive ability. However, over the last few years this has changed. NK has nuclear weapons and obviously has tested a number of successful devices, the last few may have been boosted (fusion) devices. They are currently testing ICBM delivery systems and have demonstrated the capability to reach the USA mainland a number of times. If they don't already have the ability to toss a nuclear device on an ICBM and hit us, they are obviously close.

So, we have to now take them seriously. It's like a crazy guy on the street who is obviously unarmed yelling at the cops that he's going to shoot and kill them verses a guy who has a gun doing the same thing. One get's arrested, the other get's shot.

Trump understands all this and where I don't think he wants war (see is campaign stump speeches about the Iraq war for more information) he seems to understand that kicking the NK can further down the road is folly. Right now he's trying UN sanctions (though the press doesn't talk about this) and working with China and Russia with varying success to make sure the sanctions have teeth. If NK doesn't bend, eventually the military option *might* be used, but it's obviously not the president's first choice.

So I don't think you are being fair with Trump here. If he was as you say, this whole thing would be over, most of Korea would be a smoking crater and a bunch of people would have died already. If he was just looking for an excuse, Kim has given him multiple chances since he took office. Yet, here we sit, watching the new UN sanctions take hold instead of being in a shooting war.