◼ The FBI and the President may claim that the Hermit Kingdom is to blame for the most high-profile network breach in forever. But almost all signs point in another direction. - Daily Beast
All the evidence leads me to believe that the great Sony Pictures hack of 2014 is far more likely to be the work of one disgruntled employee facing a pink slip.
I may be biased, but, as the director of security operations for DEF CON, the world’s largest hacker conference, and the principal security researcher for the world's leading mobile security company, Cloudflare, I think I am worth hearing out.
The FBI was very clear in its press release about who it believed was responsible for the attack: “The FBI now has enough information to conclude that the North Korean government is responsible for these actions,” they said in their December 19 statement, before adding, “the need to protect sensitive sources and methods precludes us from sharing all of this information”.
With that disclaimer in mind, let’s look at the evidence that the FBI are able to tell us about....KEEP READING
◼ Four-star spymaster behind North Korean hacking; Sony’s ‘The Interview’ available online - Bill Gertz/Washington Times
All the evidence leads me to believe that the great Sony Pictures hack of 2014 is far more likely to be the work of one disgruntled employee facing a pink slip.
I may be biased, but, as the director of security operations for DEF CON, the world’s largest hacker conference, and the principal security researcher for the world's leading mobile security company, Cloudflare, I think I am worth hearing out.
The FBI was very clear in its press release about who it believed was responsible for the attack: “The FBI now has enough information to conclude that the North Korean government is responsible for these actions,” they said in their December 19 statement, before adding, “the need to protect sensitive sources and methods precludes us from sharing all of this information”.
With that disclaimer in mind, let’s look at the evidence that the FBI are able to tell us about....KEEP READING
◼ Four-star spymaster behind North Korean hacking; Sony’s ‘The Interview’ available online - Bill Gertz/Washington Times
U.S. intelligence agencies have identified the military officer orchestrating North Korea’s state-sponsored hacking attacks, such as the one on Sony Pictures Entertainment. He is Gen. Kim Yong-chol, director of the espionage and clandestine operations service known as the Reconnaissance General Bureau, or RGB.◼ North Korea was NOT behind the Sony hack according to multiple security experts who discredit FBI findings and reveal that a studio insider named 'Lena' may be responsible - Daily Mail UK
- The FBI last week announced that they had discovered conclusive evidence proving the North Korean government was behind the Sony hack
- President Obama then attacked the country for their behavior during a news conference, and informed them that the United States would retaliate
- Now, the findings of the FBI are being called into question by many of the cybersecurity industry's leading experts
- What's more, after an independent investigation, Norse has determined that they believe a woman named 'Lena' is responsible for the hack
- Almost every expert stated that they believe the hack had to have been an inside job ◼ Who Hacked Sony Becomes Internet's New Mystery - NYT
Everyone has a theory about who really hacked Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. Despite President Barack Obama's conclusion that North Korea was the culprit, the Internet's newest game of whodunit continues. Top theories include disgruntled Sony insiders, hired hackers, other foreign governments or Internet hooligans. Even some experts are undecided, with questions about why the communist state would steal and leak gigabytes of data, email threats to some Sony employees and their families and then threaten moviegoers who planned to watch "The Interview" on Christmas. "Somebody's done it. And right now this knowledge is known to God and whoever did it," said Martin Libicki, a cyber security expert at RAND in Arlington, Virginia, who thinks it probably was North Korea. "So we gather up a lot of evidence, and the evidence that the FBI has shown so far doesn't allow one to distinguish between somebody who is North Korea and somebody who wants to look like North Korea."◼ We Spoke To A North Korean Defector Who Trained With Its Hackers — What He Said Is Pretty Scary - IBD
How they’re trained: Mirim University produces most of the hackers that get placed in Bureau 121. It’s a highly competitive program, with each class accepting only about 100 students out of 5,000 applicants. They take six 90-minute classes every day, learning different coding languages and operating systems, from C to Linux. Jang says a lot of time was spent dissecting Microsoft programs, like the Windows operating system, and how to attack the overall computer IT systems of enemy countries like the US or South Korea. But the core principle is to develop its own hacking programs and computer viruses without having to rely on programs already built in the outside world. Jang says he believes North Korean hackers are as good as the top programmers at Google or CIA, if not already better. “Especially in terms of coding, I’m confident they’re better because they’ve invested in it for so long,” he says. What it’s like to work for Bureau 121: They’re all very sophisticated professional hackers, with almost nine years of intense training by the time they get hired. They’re split into different focus groups based on countries to attack, like the US, South Korea, and Japan. Once they’re placed in their respective groups, they spend nearly two years traveling to their assigned country, learning the language and culture. The ability to travel outside of North Korea and make US dollars is part of the reason so many North Koreans want this job. Jang estimates there are about 1,800 cyber warriors in Bureau 121.
