The Controversy Surrounding The Attack Of Sony Pictures Entertainment

In 2014, Sony Pictures Entertainment experienced a cyber-attack that affected almost every facet of their business. Furthermore, this attack received a lot of publicity due to the purported high-profile actors involved in it. However, not everyone can agree on exactly the same cast when it comes to the attackers themselves. The official stance from the FBI, and the one accepted by Sony, is that this attack was perpetrated by the government of North Korea. Conversely, many security researchers believe that the North Korean government is an unlikely source given certain circumstances surrounding the attack. The evidence that is brought forward by these security experts is compelling and overwhelms the evidence presented to the contrary by the

The first public indication that there was something nefarious happening at Sony Pictures was in a Reddit post entitled, “I used to work for Sony Pictures. My friend still works there and sent me this. It's on every computer all over Sony Pictures nationwide.” [1]. In this post, the user uploaded a screenshot of a piece of malware that had taken over Sony’s network not just nationwide, but worldwide. There was a message from the attackers, who Identified themselves as the Guardians of Peace (GOP), contained within the screenshot which included a link to a list of files they had stolen from Sony’s network [2]. This publishing of links that pointed to file downloads, in addition to disposable email addresses, attached to anonymous messages turned out to be the GOP’s primary source of communication. Dumping several terabytes of Sony’s data over the course of a few months, the GOP revealed that they had stolen files storing plain-text passwords for

North Korea has never been very successful at controlling the narrative in any of their attempts to do so in the West. From making outrageous claims about their leader’s height of perfection, to releasing obviously photoshopped images to Western media, North Korea has never pulled off a great fake. Furthermore, they often show an inability to comprehend Western culture due to their isolation from it, often making glaring mistakes when they try to emulate it. When considering this in combination with the GOP’s quintessential “script kiddie” culture, found in the phrasing of the written taunting messages, the video claiming the FBI was an idiot, and the malware’s message screen, a skeleton overlaid with modified images of political figures and a political message, it seems unfathomable that this would be the one time that North Korea was able to pull off such an elaborate misinformation campaign as to cause experts in field to question the true identity of the attackers based on their mannerisms. Therefore, while North Korea has the technical ability to pull off such an attack, it does not seem that they have the social wherewithal to do