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China, Russia, Iran--now North Korea is the "cyber boogeyman"? Attribution is an incredibly difficult problem. Color me skeptical. Does anyone know where the
by kyboren 12y ago
China, Russia, Iran--now North Korea is the "cyber boogeyman"? Attribution is an incredibly difficult problem. Color me skeptical. Does anyone know where the rumors of North Korean direction started?
Any explanation below seems more likely to me than it really was a North Korean operation (yes, pure rank speculation):
1) it was made up by Sony to make them look somehow less incompetent†,
2) it was made up by some media organization to drive clicks, or
3) the initial investigation revealed suspicious activity from IPs in/linked to North Korea--which could, among other explanations, just mean the attacker owned their boxes and launched attacks from there
† ...And boy does their image need improvement! The attackers were supposedly able to exfiltrate a rumored 100TB of extremely-sensitive corporate data before anyone noticed?! After the rootkit fiasco, the epic SOE break-in, and now this--I can't imagine anyone wants their data anywhere near Sony's networks (nor, perhaps, Sony's software anywhere near their networks).
- smtddr 12y agoSo, I'm totally with you on all these foreign-boogeyman stories but this one is a bit different: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30283573 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30283573 >>"When asked if it was involved in the attack a spokesman for the North Korean government replied: "Wait and see." EDIT: To be clear, I am aware NK likes to look tough and can totally be taking credit for something they did not do. It's just that ominous replies like this spokesman gave makes it appear slightly less boogeyman'ish as compared to how the media loves implicating China & Russia in every cyber-attack story without bothering inform the general public about stuff like proxies.
- aaronem 12y agoConsider the amount of time, money, and effort North Korea has invested in presenting the image of a rabid dog to foreign policymakers, in hopes of improving that nation's ability to maintain its sovereignty against the threats it perceives from all sides, and particularly from the United States. Given that, what else would you expect? Honesty?
- dasil003 12y agoYeah, think about it. Who benefits from the idea that North Korea is behind this? Literally everyone. Hell, they could even have contributed by donating VPN capacity to leave the tell-tale footprint or whatever without providing any of the actual talent to pull off this operation.
- click170 12y agoI'm skeptical anytime someone tries to attribute an attack to someone else without detailed explanation of why they believe that.
- rtpg 12y agoPeople seem to have been talking about that Seth Rogen movie coming out (The Interview), produced by Sony, which is pretty mocking about North Korea, at least if you just watch the trailer. This seems pretty flimsy, but it kind of fits with the cartoon dictator-esque image we have of North Korea's leadership.
- click170 12y agoI agree that it's in line with what we would expect from North Korea, but I don't think that having a motive is itself evidence of the crime. They haven't even admitted to it, they've instead made a statement of "maybe" that I would expect from an elementary school child. To me, that smells like they want us to think it might have been them but don't want to look stupid (weak?) if someone else claims attribution for the hack after-the-fact.
- serve_yay 12y agoI know what you mean, but that idea started because apparently Sony Pictures released a movie that was critical of their regime. Pattern matching can go wrong in all sorts of interesting ways! :)
- anigbrowl 12y agoWell, North Korea is upset about the upcoming Sony Pictures comedy involving James Franco and Seth Rogen being sent to NK to assassinate Kim Jong Un. So that country's government certainly has a motive, even if it's a bad one.