The United States is actively considering a “proportional” retaliation for the cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment which, it has now concluded, is the handiwork of North Korea and is a “serious national security matter”.
Although the reclusive North Korean regime of Kim Jong Un was all along the prime suspect, the Obama administration did not formally name it until Friday morning, when the FBI concluded its investigation. “The FBI now has enough information to conclude that the North Korean government is responsible for these actions,” the FBI said, confirming what government officials had been saying privately for days. An immediate fallout from the hacking episode has been Sony’s abrupt cancellation of its Christmas release of “The Interview”, a film on the fictional assassination of the North Korean leader, amid a warning from the hackers that its screening could trigger another 9/11-type terror strike.
An FBI statement said investigators found “significant overlap in the infrastructure” used in the Sony hacking and in previous attacks. There were also similarities in technological tools used in this attack and an a cyberattack in March 2013 against South Korean banks and media outlets, which was blamed on North Korea.
The FBI said it will “identify, pursue, and impose costs and consequences on individuals, groups, or nation states who use cyber means to threaten the United States or US interests.” The agency, however, did not name any other country. Earlier, there was speculation that investigators are probing the possible involvement of Iran, China or Russia, given the assessment that North Korea may not have the competence to mount such a high level of cyberattack all by itself. Ahead of the FBI conclusions, the White House made it clear that the United States will mount an appropriate response. Spokesman Josh Earnest said members of the President’s national security team were considering a range of options.
“While we may not agree with the content of every single thing that is produced, we certainly stand squarely on the side of the right of private individuals to express themselves. And that is a view that is strongly held by this administration, as it has been throughout the history of our country,” Earnest said. Sony’s decision to cancel screening of “The Interview” came soon after America’s top four theatre chains announced that they would not show the film.
But the US Department of Homeland Security maintained that there was “no credible intelligence to indicate an active plot against movie theatres”. The cyberattack on Sony Pictures resulted in the leak of tens of thousands of documents. As for “The Interview”, a hacker group, calling itself Guardians of Peace, held out the threat of a “bitter fate” for those flocking to theatres to see the movie, which has been shelved for now.