The FBI formally acknowledges Pyongyang’s involvement, saying the tools used in the attack were similar to previous activity from North Korea.
REUTERS – The United States on Friday blamed North Korea for the devastating cyberattack against Sony Pictures, formally acknowledging the involvement of the Pyongyang government and saying the tools and infrastructure used in the attack were similar to previous activity from North Korea.
The “destructive nature” of the attack, which led the big Hollywood studio to pull a movie depicting North Korea’s leader amid threats, coupled with “its coercive nature,” set it apart from previous attacks, the FBI said.
The White House has called the strike a matter of national security and said it was weighing a “proportional response.” But it stopped short of pointing the finger at North Korea.
President Barack Obama was expected to address the issue at a 1:30 P.M. (1830 GMT) end-of-year news conference.
North Korea has previously denied involvement, and a North Korean UN diplomat on Thursday declined to comment on the accusation that Pyongyang was responsible.
The attack on Sony, more than three weeks ago, is the most destructive hacking of a company on U.S. soil, conducted by hackers calling themselves “Guardians of Peace.”
It brought down the computer network at Sony Pictures Entertainment, prompted the leak of embarrassing emails, and led to Sony’s cancellation of “The Interview,” a comic film that culminates in a scene depicting the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
U.S. movie theaters had said they would not show the film after hackers made threats against cinemas and audiences. Many in Hollywood and Washington criticized Sony’s cancellation as caving in to the hackers.
Sony Pictures is a unit of Sony Corp.
U.S. experts say options for the Obama administration could include cyber retaliation, financial sanctions and even a boost in U.S. military support to South Korea to send a stern message to North Korea.
Another could be to return North Korea to a U.S. list of State Sponsors of Terrorism from which it was removed in 2008, but the effect of any response could be limited given North Korea’s isolation and the fact that it is already heavily sanctioned.
Obama’s national security team has struggled to come up with a response tough enough to get its message across but not so extreme as to provoke North Korea to engage in further cyber warfare.
A dilemma for the administration was how much of its evidence it could make public without divulging the technological means it has to trace cyber attacks back to the source.
