Despite evidence to the contrary, FBI Director James Comey is still pointing the finger towards North Korea as the responsible party behind the epic Sony Pictures hack. Via ARS Technica, here’s what he cites as evidence:
While the Sony attackers had largely concealed their identity by using proxy servers, Comey said that on several occasions they “got sloppy” and connected directly, revealing their own IP address. It was those slip-ups, he said, that provided evidence linking North Korea to the attack on Sony’s network. Comey also said that analysts at the FBI found the patterns of writing and other identifying data from the attack matched previous attacks attributed to North Korea. Additionally, there was other evidence, Comey said, that he could not share publicly.
Still missing from the equation is how the attackers penetrated Sony’s network. Comey said that FBI was still investigating how the attackers got in, but noted that the company had been targeted by “spear phishing” campaigns—including one that occurred in September.
Here’s where some of this starts to fall apart. It’s not that hard to fake or “spoof” an Internet address. So if I were a hacker not affiliated to North Korea and I wanted to sell that it was North Korea that was behind the hack, I’d leave a few clues behind to point towards the North Koreans. For all we know, that’s what these hackers did. Also, patterns of writing can be copied. So that doesn’t prove anything either. Then there’s this fact that I wrote about in this article:
A government who is behind a hack of this sort would not want to do any of that because it draws way too much attention to their covert hacking activities. Thus, that really casts doubt on North Korea being responsible.
So unless there is evidence beyond the circumstantial stuff presented thus far, I am still dubious of North Korea being responsible for this hack.
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This entry was posted on January 8, 2015 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags hack, Sony. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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FBI Stands By Accusation That North Korea Is Behind Sony Pictures Hack
Despite evidence to the contrary, FBI Director James Comey is still pointing the finger towards North Korea as the responsible party behind the epic Sony Pictures hack. Via ARS Technica, here’s what he cites as evidence:
While the Sony attackers had largely concealed their identity by using proxy servers, Comey said that on several occasions they “got sloppy” and connected directly, revealing their own IP address. It was those slip-ups, he said, that provided evidence linking North Korea to the attack on Sony’s network. Comey also said that analysts at the FBI found the patterns of writing and other identifying data from the attack matched previous attacks attributed to North Korea. Additionally, there was other evidence, Comey said, that he could not share publicly.
Still missing from the equation is how the attackers penetrated Sony’s network. Comey said that FBI was still investigating how the attackers got in, but noted that the company had been targeted by “spear phishing” campaigns—including one that occurred in September.
Here’s where some of this starts to fall apart. It’s not that hard to fake or “spoof” an Internet address. So if I were a hacker not affiliated to North Korea and I wanted to sell that it was North Korea that was behind the hack, I’d leave a few clues behind to point towards the North Koreans. For all we know, that’s what these hackers did. Also, patterns of writing can be copied. So that doesn’t prove anything either. Then there’s this fact that I wrote about in this article:
A government who is behind a hack of this sort would not want to do any of that because it draws way too much attention to their covert hacking activities. Thus, that really casts doubt on North Korea being responsible.
So unless there is evidence beyond the circumstantial stuff presented thus far, I am still dubious of North Korea being responsible for this hack.
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This entry was posted on January 8, 2015 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags hack, Sony. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.