North Korea says pro-Pyongyang supporters behind Sony cyber attack
While the world wonders who is behind the massive cyber attack which left Sony red-faced, North Korea has come out to deny that it has had anything to do with it.
An article from the state KCNA news agency said North Korea said that the attack could be the work of supporters and sympathisers.
"The hacking into Sony Pictures might be a righteous deed of the supporters and sympathisers with the DPRK in response to its appeal,” the article said, using the official DPRK acronym for North Korea.
The country had “called on the world” to defend it from a forthcoming Sony Pictures Entertainment comedy, The Interview, which features a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
North Korea has described the film as an “act of war”.
The article denounced South Korea for “floating the false rumour that the North was involved in the hacking”, and warned the United States that “there are a great number of supporters and sympathizers with the DPRK all over the world”.
It said ‘Guardians of Peace’, a previously unknown hacking gang which has taken responsibility for the attack, was one such group.
A North Korean diplomat has denied Pyongyang was behind the attack that was launched last month but a US national security source said it was a suspect.
Exposed data
Pyongyang has active cyber-warfare capabilities, military and software security experts have said. Much of it is targeted at the South, technically still in a state of war with North Korea.
The attack exposed a trove of internal data, including salaries and Social Security numbers, and shut down the computer systems at the entertainment arm of Sony Corp.
Forensics experts hired by Sony Corp to investigate the massive cyber attack at its Hollywood studio said the breach was unprecedented, well-planned and carried out by an “organized group,” according to an e-mail obtained by wire service Reuters on Saturday (Dec 6).
Kevin Mandia, the top executive at FireEye Inc’s Mandiant forensics unit, made the comments in an e-mail to Michael Lynton, chief executive of Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE).
Mandia, whose firm has probed some of the biggest cyber attacks to date, said in his email that “The scope of this attack differs from any we have responded to in the past, as its purpose was to both destroy property and release confidential information to the public.”
He added that “The bottom line is that this was an unparalleled and well planned crime, carried out by an organized group, for which neither SPE nor other companies could have been fully prepared.”
Source: Reuters, YouTube
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