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brooklynite

(93,878 posts)
Mon May 15, 2017, 09:28 PM May 2017

In Computer Attacks, Clues Point to Frequent Culprit: North Korea

Source: The New York Times

SAN FRANCISCO — Intelligence officials and private security experts say that new digital clues point to North Korean-linked hackers as likely suspects in the sweeping ransomware attacks that have crippled computer systems around the world.

The indicators are far from conclusive, the researchers warned, and it could be weeks, if not months, before investigators are confident enough in their findings to officially point the finger at Pyongyang’s increasingly bold corps of digital hackers. The attackers based their weapon on vulnerabilities that were stolen from the National Security Agency and published last month.

Security experts at Symantec, which in the past has accurately identified attacks mounted by the United States, Israel and North Korea, found early versions of the ransomware, called WannaCry, that used tools that were also deployed against Sony Pictures Entertainment, a Bangladesh Central Bank last year and a Polish bank in February. American officials said on Monday they have seen the same similarities.

All of those were attacks were ultimately linked to North Korea; President Barack Obama formally charged the North in late 2014 with destroying computers at Sony in retaliation for a comedy, “The Interview,’’ that envisioned a C.I.A. plot to kill Kim Jung-un, the country’s president.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/us/nsa-hacking-shadow-brokers.html

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cstanleytech

(26,085 posts)
10. On the other hand if you are fronting the resources and personal to
Mon May 15, 2017, 11:16 PM
May 2017

N Korea to be a thorn in the side for countries that are your rivals it kind of makes sense to pretend innocence by having them stage a hack of your network as well.
If you know its going to happen in advance you can make plans to avoid any real major damage and then pretend to be upset over it and shocked.
Now I honestly dont know if Russia is doing that but would it really surprise me if they were? Nope.

Eliot Rosewater

(31,097 posts)
13. A. are we certain of the interior ministry part?
Tue May 16, 2017, 12:37 PM
May 2017

B. why are we certain, what is the source for that?

C. if I was going to do this the FIRST place I would hack would be my own, for obvious reasons

nycbos

(6,033 posts)
3. I think NK has the most leverage.
Mon May 15, 2017, 09:37 PM
May 2017

NK know full well that what China fears is the Kim regime collapsing and a unified Korea under Seoul's leadership. This would bring South Korean troops back by the Untied States at their boarder.


NK probably figures they can act out without much consequences given what China fears.

cstanleytech

(26,085 posts)
11. My guess? They were ordered to by the country I suspect thats supplying them with resources
Mon May 15, 2017, 11:20 PM
May 2017

and support which I am willing to bet is not China but Russia because N Korea is causing alot of havoc in the region and it causes China, Japan, S Korea and the US as well as most of the rest of the world to focus on N Korea rather than on other areas like say the Crimean Peninsula.

 

Trial_By_Fire

(624 posts)
4. They said this on CBS Nightly News as well....but...
Mon May 15, 2017, 09:49 PM
May 2017

...but, to me, it's propaganda. The republicans are dying to get the USA into another war.

When you watch Natgeo, Science Channel, and others - they run shows
saying how Iran wants to kill us and North Korea wants to kill us. All they
offer is hearsay - no proof.

It's why America is so fucked up - far to many Americans fall for this shit.

It's what they did for the Iraq 'war'. It's all propaganda.

brooklynite

(93,878 posts)
6. On the day the WaPo and NYT break a story on WH leaks, you think the Times has been suckered...
Mon May 15, 2017, 09:55 PM
May 2017

...by the same White House?

 

Trial_By_Fire

(624 posts)
7. "The indicators are far from conclusive"
Mon May 15, 2017, 10:00 PM
May 2017

That's from the article...

And remember, corporate America LOVES War... Did you not know that?

brooklynite

(93,878 posts)
8. 1. I DON'T know that...because corporate America loves stability
Mon May 15, 2017, 10:08 PM
May 2017

2. Whether or not the indicators are "conclusive", there's no evidence that the story is a feed from the Government, or that the New York Times would blindly accept it.

 

Trial_By_Fire

(624 posts)
9. I did not write that...
Mon May 15, 2017, 10:15 PM
May 2017

...the story is a 'feed from the government' or that NYTimes blindly accept it.

It's that it is speculation as evident by the article, or commonly called propaganda.
Remember that NTTimes sold the Iraq war...You must not have been around in those times...

nitpicker

(7,153 posts)
12. Link to BBC
Tue May 16, 2017, 05:36 AM
May 2017
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39931635

WannaCry ransomware cyber-attack 'may have N Korea link'

Who was behind the huge global cyber-attack? One prominent theory right now is North Korea - but what we know is far from conclusive.

You may not have heard of the Lazarus Group, but you may be aware of its work. The devastating hack on Sony Pictures in 2014, and another on a Bangladeshi bank in 2016, have both been attributed to the highly sophisticated group. It is widely believed that the Lazarus Group worked out of China, but on behalf of the North Koreans.

Security experts are now cautiously linking the Lazarus Group to this latest attack after a discovery by Google security researcher Neel Mehta. He found similarities between code found within WannaCry - the software used in the hack - and other tools believed to have been created by the Lazarus Group in the past. It's a mere sliver of evidence, but there are other clues to consider too.

Prof Alan Woodward, a security expert, pointed out to me that the text demanding the ransom uses what reads like machine-translated English, with a Chinese segment apparently written by a native speaker. "As you can see it's pretty thin and all circumstantial," Prof Woodward said. "However, it's worth further investigation."
(snip)
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