6 ms·

The earliest reports I can find claiming that North Korea may have been involved were from the middle of May: https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/15/15643226/wanna

by craigc 9y ago

The earliest reports I can find claiming that North Korea may have been involved were from the middle of May: https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/15/15643226/wannacry-ransomware-north-korea-attribution-wannacrypt https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/15/15643226/wannacry-ransomw... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/15/wannacry-ransomware-north-korea-lazarus-group https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/15/wannacry-... There is nothing conclusive there though If this is not the most convenient way to justify going to war with North Korea then I don’t know what is. It is almost as if the hackers WANTED to get caught by reusing code that was previously used in an attack initiated by North Korea. Also we shouldn’t forget that it was an exploit developed by the NSA to begin with. Weapons of Mass Destruction anyone?

pulisse 9y ago
In October, Microsoft officially blamed North Korea[1], as did the UK government[2], neither of whom is trying to lay the groundwork for war. [1] http://www.itv.com/news/2017-10-13/hacking-threat-is-as-serious-as-terrorism-says-microsoft-boss http://www.itv.com/news/2017-10-13/hacking-threat-is-as-seri... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/27/uk-north-korea-behind-wannacry-cyber-attack-that-crippled-nhs.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/27/uk-north-korea-behind-wannac...
- jacquesm 9y ago
  In the run-up to the Iraq war there was this group of UN weapons inspectors that had concluded based on the available evidence that Saddam did not have WMD. That did not stop the UK from going ahead with their bit in the Gulf War. If a war is to be had evidence doesn't really matter. It could be fabricated far easier than you could have real evidence, history has quite a few examples. Given the current political climate in the UK I would not put it past them to start making stuff up, a distraction from internal strife is always a good reason to start a war. Microsoft - I hope - is another matter. The reason why - at least, to me - there is little point to either the UK or the US wanting to start a war with NK is that unlike Iraq NK actually has a good chance of inflicting massive damage on an ally. Plus the lottery ticket of Kim being able to lob a nuke halfway across the globe and make it stick even if attacked might be another item that gives pause to the powers that be. So, whether NK is behind these attacks or not is absent very solid proof an open question, whether or not the government is laying the grounds for war hardly matters, those are not necessarily connected, though they could be it would be a first to go to a shooting war with a nation state over a cyber attack.
  - stevenwoo 9y ago
    The one point that might matter is if one thinks about how the US switched to being all rah rah after we went to war against Iraq for WMD as you describe and some pretty tenuous claims to a connection with terrorism. It does not seem to be outside the realm of possibility that it would not be beneath an unpopular government to use that as a motivation to make itself unassailable ( as in we're at war, it's unpatriotic to not support the flag/troops.) A lot of evidence points to the official US entry into the shooting war in Vietnam after what appeared to be totally fictional attacks on the US Navy - because the president did not want to appear to be weak. The other thing is the act of congress enabling the President to authorize force after 9/11 is almost unconditional if he/she just says terrorism. We should have rescinded that after Osama bin Ladin was killed.
  - wybiral 9y ago
    There are a number of conspiracy theories floating around regarding the reasoning behind the war in Iraq and the role that US, UK, and Iran all played.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      "Kelly believed it was most likely that Iraq had retained some biological weapons after the end of inspections.[7] After the end of the ground war, he was invited to join the inspection team attempting to find any trace of weapons of mass destruction programmes and was apparently enthusiastic about resuming his work there. He made two attempted trips to Iraq. The first was on 19 May 2003 when he was prevented from entering Iraq from Kuwait because he did not have the proper documents. The second trip was from 5 June 2003 to 11 June 2003 when Kelly went to view and photograph two alleged mobile weapons laboratories as a part of a third inspection team. Kelly was unhappy with the description of the trailers and spoke off the record to The Observer, which, on 15 June 2003, quoted "a British scientist and biological weapons expert, who has examined the trailers in Iraq." The expert said: They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were – facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons. It was confirmed in the Hutton Inquiry that Kelly was the source of this quote." From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_expert) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_expert) See also: the 45 minute claim.
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  Or it could be that the Tories/NHS are trying to scrape some egg off their face for being so fucking stupid and cheap as to keep running XP. The general public is a bit more forgiving when you're taken down by a nation state rather than a bunch of criminals preying on a deliberately unlocked door. Microsoft, probably being mildly cognizant that you don't win new contracts by accusing lucrative customers of rank fucking idiocy especially when it's true, will naturally play along with the conspiracy theory, especially since the chances of strong evidence pointing to the actual culprits coming to light are so low.
- LV-426 9y ago
  > In October, Microsoft officially blamed North Korea, I can see why Microsoft would want to deflect attention from its own failings to the bogeyman of the week, but I'm not sure what qualifies a private business to "officially" pronounce on weighty geopolitical matters that could result in WWIII. When Microsoft falsely blamed Intel for Microsoft Surface failures[1], or falsely marked a non-Microsoft web browser as malware and removed it from thousands of PCs[2], at least the lives of millions of people weren't at stake. A nation state would collapse long before it reached the point of being so broke it had to rely on - FFS - a Bitcoin ransomware attack to survive. I can't believe I'm actually having to type such an obvious thing, but apparently some people think otherwise. What's North Korea's back up plan for economic survival, a chain letter? It's a sorry world when people give the time of day to such transparently obvious and nonsensical propaganda, intended to suck us into yet another bloodbath, just because NK isn't a nice place to live. > as did the UK government, neither of whom is trying to lay the groundwork for war. Assuming that wasn't as a joke: the UK has been a lapdog of the USA (aka "Special Relationship"[3]) if not since WWII, certainly since the 1980s, when British people themselves openly referred to their country, even in popular chart songs[4][5], as the 51st State. Of course the UK lacks the status and relevance in Washington DC of a real US state, and is simply treated (and behaves accordingly) like a reserve branch of US armed forces, supporting wars that serve US interests, including the one where at least 20% of North Korean human beings were exterminated by the US military. [1] https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/microsoft-surface/132832/heres-microsoft-saying-internally-surface-quality-reliability https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/microsoft-surface/132832/her... [2] https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-falsely-labels-chrome-as-malware/ https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-falsely-labels-chrome-as... [3] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/obama-us-uk-joke-special-relationship-officials-mocked-britain-jeremy-shapiro-a7994876.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/obama-us-uk-j... [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmup_vQvBGk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmup_vQvBGk [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a75Ez48alDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a75Ez48alDE
oh_sigh 9y ago
Do you really think the US is going to enter a nuclear war with a nation over some ransomware that netted approximately $150k(back when it happened - if they held onto that BTC they now have almost a $1,000,000)?
slg 9y ago
North Korea has confirmed WMDs, has the ability to strike US soil with them, and likely has the ability to strike the Continental US. Meanwhile North Korea is also guilty of some of the worst human rights violations since the end of WWII. If the US does end up in a war with North Korea ransomware is going to be nowhere near the top of the list of casus belli.
- WalterGR 9y ago
  North Korea has confirmed WMDs, has the ability to strike US soil with them, and likely has the ability to strike the Continental US. Citation? My understanding is than they are likely able to hit the continental US with an unarmed ICBM, and that it is highly unlikely that they would be able to do so with the added weight of a nuclear warhead.
  - Iv 9y ago
    A warhead can be as small as a hundred kilograms. An ICBM weights several tens of tons. I think this is a non issue.
  - stickfigure 9y ago
    1. NK has boats 2. Boats sail across oceans 3. Bombs fit on boats
  - esmi 9y ago
    Even if they can’t hit continental US soil per se there are US bases in South Korea and Japan with many civilian residents.
  - Kadin 9y ago
    They've demonstrated the capability of probably being able to hit the West coast of the continental US with a missile; they also have some nuclear weapon capability which may or may not be a true "hydrogen bomb". I don't think anyone outside of N. Korea knows what their exact capability is on any particular day -- which is probably exactly what they want. There is a realistic concern about the pace of their developments, though, which is IMO the real food for thought. Most analysis from more than 12 months ago did not assume they would make the advances in missile range or throw weight that they have, which raises concerns that another state is helping them (actively or inadvertently). If that is the case, they might also be able to miniaturize their weapons more quickly than originally estimated as well. Absent some outside factor, it's safe to assume that at some point in the not too distant future, they will get the combination of weapon mass down, and missile throw weight up, such that the two meet and give them enough range to hit the continental US. Most arms control theories suggest that it's better to be clear about what your responses will be to particular stimulus ("deterrence signals"), in order to reduce the threat of an accidental war. IMO, if the US leadership was more competent or even credibly sane, the best-possible response to N. Korea would be a system of "red lines" composed of DPRK actions and pre-planned US reactions, in consultation or at least full view of other nuclear states (principally China and Russia; the South Koreans would hopefully have some say over the responses, although they might do well to distance themselves). I've read some essays that suggest there was an understanding between the US and USSR in the 80s regarding Libya to something like this effect. But of course, the US is not really credible at the moment in terms of internal consistency or rational behavior, which makes rational-actor game theory, on which a lot of deterrence is based, difficult.
crdoconnor 9y ago
It's more likely something that they can use when they go to Congress begging for more budget than a pretext for war.
deepnet 9y ago
Wannacry had a really obvious and weird kill-switch ( presumably to limit damage ) an un-registered domain[1]. Marcus Hutchins a British security researcher registered this domain. As the domain offswitch ping was obvious Hutchins was seemingly the only competent researcher who read the source code. Hutchins, Britain's Saviour of the NHS[2] (Britain's National Health Service) was outed by the British tabloid press that published his home address. Next Marcus Hutchins was arrested while attending DefCon and is currently awaiting trial in the US on unrelated charges. [3] Wannacry had spread throughout the NHS and was preventing actual life saving operations, it spread on some Microsoft XP and mostly unpatched 7 systems, from the audit: "NHS Digital told us that all organisations infected by WannaCry shared the same vulnerability and could have taken relatively simple action to protect themselves . ... NHS Digital told us that the majority of NHS devices infected were unpatched but on supported Microsoft Windows 7 operating systems. Unsupported devices (those on XP) were in the minority of identified issues. NHS Digital has also confirmed that the ransomware spread via the internet, including through the N3 network (the broadband network connecting all NHS sites in England),"[4] NHS Digital Audit [1] https://whoapi.com/blog/3079/what-is-the-domain-name-that-stopped-wannacry/ https://whoapi.com/blog/3079/what-is-the-domain-name-that-st... [2] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nhs-cyber-attack-hack-marcus-hutchins-hero-accidental-wannacry-north-korea-a7738231.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nhs-cyber-att... [3] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/marcus-hutchins-arrested-latest-us-authorities-wannacry-cyberattack-nhs-las-cegas-mccaran-a7875761.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/marcus-hutchi... [3] https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Investigation-WannaCry-cyber-attack-and-the-NHS.pdf https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Investigat... From a comedic dystopian science fiction perspective this coincides the politics of underfunding the NHS, institutional costs of running Microsoft's patches on vital life-saving equipment, the US intelligence services offensive rather than defensive playbook, and an "unlikely" hero. Might make a great novel except if ludicrously we are about to live it as a pretext.
- Crosseye_Jack 9y ago
  > As the domain offswitch ping was obvious Hutchins was seemingly the only competent researcher who read the source code. If iirc it was an accidental discovery of the kill switch. He noticed the pings to the domain, noticed it was un-reg’ed, thought “hmmm if I reg this domain I will be able to see how many other infections and their location when they ping home”. So reg’ed the domain. It was then when he noticed the code would quit out if the domain was in use.

by craigc 9y ago

pulisse 9y ago

In October, Microsoft officially blamed North Korea[1], as did the UK government[2], neither of whom is trying to lay the groundwork for war. [1] http://www.itv.com/news/2017-10-13/hacking-threat-is-as-serious-as-terrorism-says-microsoft-boss http://www.itv.com/news/2017-10-13/hacking-threat-is-as-seri... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/27/uk-north-korea-behind-wannacry-cyber-attack-that-crippled-nhs.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/27/uk-north-korea-behind-wannac...

jacquesm 9y ago
In the run-up to the Iraq war there was this group of UN weapons inspectors that had concluded based on the available evidence that Saddam did not have WMD. That did not stop the UK from going ahead with their bit in the Gulf War. If a war is to be had evidence doesn't really matter. It could be fabricated far easier than you could have real evidence, history has quite a few examples. Given the current political climate in the UK I would not put it past them to start making stuff up, a distraction from internal strife is always a good reason to start a war. Microsoft - I hope - is another matter. The reason why - at least, to me - there is little point to either the UK or the US wanting to start a war with NK is that unlike Iraq NK actually has a good chance of inflicting massive damage on an ally. Plus the lottery ticket of Kim being able to lob a nuke halfway across the globe and make it stick even if attacked might be another item that gives pause to the powers that be. So, whether NK is behind these attacks or not is absent very solid proof an open question, whether or not the government is laying the grounds for war hardly matters, those are not necessarily connected, though they could be it would be a first to go to a shooting war with a nation state over a cyber attack.
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  The one point that might matter is if one thinks about how the US switched to being all rah rah after we went to war against Iraq for WMD as you describe and some pretty tenuous claims to a connection with terrorism. It does not seem to be outside the realm of possibility that it would not be beneath an unpopular government to use that as a motivation to make itself unassailable ( as in we're at war, it's unpatriotic to not support the flag/troops.) A lot of evidence points to the official US entry into the shooting war in Vietnam after what appeared to be totally fictional attacks on the US Navy - because the president did not want to appear to be weak. The other thing is the act of congress enabling the President to authorize force after 9/11 is almost unconditional if he/she just says terrorism. We should have rescinded that after Osama bin Ladin was killed.
- wybiral 9y ago
  There are a number of conspiracy theories floating around regarding the reasoning behind the war in Iraq and the role that US, UK, and Iran all played.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    "Kelly believed it was most likely that Iraq had retained some biological weapons after the end of inspections.[7] After the end of the ground war, he was invited to join the inspection team attempting to find any trace of weapons of mass destruction programmes and was apparently enthusiastic about resuming his work there. He made two attempted trips to Iraq. The first was on 19 May 2003 when he was prevented from entering Iraq from Kuwait because he did not have the proper documents. The second trip was from 5 June 2003 to 11 June 2003 when Kelly went to view and photograph two alleged mobile weapons laboratories as a part of a third inspection team. Kelly was unhappy with the description of the trailers and spoke off the record to The Observer, which, on 15 June 2003, quoted "a British scientist and biological weapons expert, who has examined the trailers in Iraq." The expert said: They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were – facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons. It was confirmed in the Hutton Inquiry that Kelly was the source of this quote." From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_expert) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_expert) See also: the 45 minute claim.
crdoconnor 9y ago
Or it could be that the Tories/NHS are trying to scrape some egg off their face for being so fucking stupid and cheap as to keep running XP. The general public is a bit more forgiving when you're taken down by a nation state rather than a bunch of criminals preying on a deliberately unlocked door. Microsoft, probably being mildly cognizant that you don't win new contracts by accusing lucrative customers of rank fucking idiocy especially when it's true, will naturally play along with the conspiracy theory, especially since the chances of strong evidence pointing to the actual culprits coming to light are so low.
LV-426 9y ago
> In October, Microsoft officially blamed North Korea, I can see why Microsoft would want to deflect attention from its own failings to the bogeyman of the week, but I'm not sure what qualifies a private business to "officially" pronounce on weighty geopolitical matters that could result in WWIII. When Microsoft falsely blamed Intel for Microsoft Surface failures[1], or falsely marked a non-Microsoft web browser as malware and removed it from thousands of PCs[2], at least the lives of millions of people weren't at stake. A nation state would collapse long before it reached the point of being so broke it had to rely on - FFS - a Bitcoin ransomware attack to survive. I can't believe I'm actually having to type such an obvious thing, but apparently some people think otherwise. What's North Korea's back up plan for economic survival, a chain letter? It's a sorry world when people give the time of day to such transparently obvious and nonsensical propaganda, intended to suck us into yet another bloodbath, just because NK isn't a nice place to live. > as did the UK government, neither of whom is trying to lay the groundwork for war. Assuming that wasn't as a joke: the UK has been a lapdog of the USA (aka "Special Relationship"[3]) if not since WWII, certainly since the 1980s, when British people themselves openly referred to their country, even in popular chart songs[4][5], as the 51st State. Of course the UK lacks the status and relevance in Washington DC of a real US state, and is simply treated (and behaves accordingly) like a reserve branch of US armed forces, supporting wars that serve US interests, including the one where at least 20% of North Korean human beings were exterminated by the US military. [1] https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/microsoft-surface/132832/heres-microsoft-saying-internally-surface-quality-reliability https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/microsoft-surface/132832/her... [2] https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-falsely-labels-chrome-as-malware/ https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-falsely-labels-chrome-as... [3] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/obama-us-uk-joke-special-relationship-officials-mocked-britain-jeremy-shapiro-a7994876.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/obama-us-uk-j... [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmup_vQvBGk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmup_vQvBGk [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a75Ez48alDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a75Ez48alDE

oh_sigh 9y ago

Do you really think the US is going to enter a nuclear war with a nation over some ransomware that netted approximately $150k(back when it happened - if they held onto that BTC they now have almost a $1,000,000)?

slg 9y ago

North Korea has confirmed WMDs, has the ability to strike US soil with them, and likely has the ability to strike the Continental US. Meanwhile North Korea is also guilty of some of the worst human rights violations since the end of WWII. If the US does end up in a war with North Korea ransomware is going to be nowhere near the top of the list of casus belli.

WalterGR 9y ago
North Korea has confirmed WMDs, has the ability to strike US soil with them, and likely has the ability to strike the Continental US. Citation? My understanding is than they are likely able to hit the continental US with an unarmed ICBM, and that it is highly unlikely that they would be able to do so with the added weight of a nuclear warhead.
- Iv 9y ago
  A warhead can be as small as a hundred kilograms. An ICBM weights several tens of tons. I think this is a non issue.
- stickfigure 9y ago
  1. NK has boats 2. Boats sail across oceans 3. Bombs fit on boats
- esmi 9y ago
  Even if they can’t hit continental US soil per se there are US bases in South Korea and Japan with many civilian residents.
- Kadin 9y ago
  They've demonstrated the capability of probably being able to hit the West coast of the continental US with a missile; they also have some nuclear weapon capability which may or may not be a true "hydrogen bomb". I don't think anyone outside of N. Korea knows what their exact capability is on any particular day -- which is probably exactly what they want. There is a realistic concern about the pace of their developments, though, which is IMO the real food for thought. Most analysis from more than 12 months ago did not assume they would make the advances in missile range or throw weight that they have, which raises concerns that another state is helping them (actively or inadvertently). If that is the case, they might also be able to miniaturize their weapons more quickly than originally estimated as well. Absent some outside factor, it's safe to assume that at some point in the not too distant future, they will get the combination of weapon mass down, and missile throw weight up, such that the two meet and give them enough range to hit the continental US. Most arms control theories suggest that it's better to be clear about what your responses will be to particular stimulus ("deterrence signals"), in order to reduce the threat of an accidental war. IMO, if the US leadership was more competent or even credibly sane, the best-possible response to N. Korea would be a system of "red lines" composed of DPRK actions and pre-planned US reactions, in consultation or at least full view of other nuclear states (principally China and Russia; the South Koreans would hopefully have some say over the responses, although they might do well to distance themselves). I've read some essays that suggest there was an understanding between the US and USSR in the 80s regarding Libya to something like this effect. But of course, the US is not really credible at the moment in terms of internal consistency or rational behavior, which makes rational-actor game theory, on which a lot of deterrence is based, difficult.

crdoconnor 9y ago

It's more likely something that they can use when they go to Congress begging for more budget than a pretext for war.

deepnet 9y ago

Wannacry had a really obvious and weird kill-switch ( presumably to limit damage ) an un-registered domain[1]. Marcus Hutchins a British security researcher registered this domain. As the domain offswitch ping was obvious Hutchins was seemingly the only competent researcher who read the source code. Hutchins, Britain's Saviour of the NHS[2] (Britain's National Health Service) was outed by the British tabloid press that published his home address. Next Marcus Hutchins was arrested while attending DefCon and is currently awaiting trial in the US on unrelated charges. [3] Wannacry had spread throughout the NHS and was preventing actual life saving operations, it spread on some Microsoft XP and mostly unpatched 7 systems, from the audit: "NHS Digital told us that all organisations infected by WannaCry shared the same vulnerability and could have taken relatively simple action to protect themselves . ... NHS Digital told us that the majority of NHS devices infected were unpatched but on supported Microsoft Windows 7 operating systems. Unsupported devices (those on XP) were in the minority of identified issues. NHS Digital has also confirmed that the ransomware spread via the internet, including through the N3 network (the broadband network connecting all NHS sites in England),"[4] NHS Digital Audit [1] https://whoapi.com/blog/3079/what-is-the-domain-name-that-stopped-wannacry/ https://whoapi.com/blog/3079/what-is-the-domain-name-that-st... [2] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nhs-cyber-attack-hack-marcus-hutchins-hero-accidental-wannacry-north-korea-a7738231.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nhs-cyber-att... [3] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/marcus-hutchins-arrested-latest-us-authorities-wannacry-cyberattack-nhs-las-cegas-mccaran-a7875761.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/marcus-hutchi... [3] https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Investigation-WannaCry-cyber-attack-and-the-NHS.pdf https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Investigat... From a comedic dystopian science fiction perspective this coincides the politics of underfunding the NHS, institutional costs of running Microsoft's patches on vital life-saving equipment, the US intelligence services offensive rather than defensive playbook, and an "unlikely" hero. Might make a great novel except if ludicrously we are about to live it as a pretext.

Crosseye_Jack 9y ago
> As the domain offswitch ping was obvious Hutchins was seemingly the only competent researcher who read the source code. If iirc it was an accidental discovery of the kill switch. He noticed the pings to the domain, noticed it was un-reg’ed, thought “hmmm if I reg this domain I will be able to see how many other infections and their location when they ping home”. So reg’ed the domain. It was then when he noticed the code would quit out if the domain was in use.