New Study Adds to Skepticism Among Experts That North Korea Was Behind Sony Hack

Re:New Study Adds to Skepticism Among Experts That North Kor... by spcoll on Friday December 26, 2014 @09:36AM (#8798913)

If DPRK has the capacity to pull this sort of hacking feat on demand, it begs the question: why aren't they doing it around the clock, to hurt their enemies that they seem to hate so much? It's just not very realistic to think that DPRK has this super secret hacker army (but not so secret that we haven't heard of it in the media) that can hack any large corporation (but can't cover its own tracks). If they did, we would see it action all year long.

This hack sounds like the work of a large, professional, well-funded organization that only uses its capabilities in a very targeted, parsimonious manner. But what would be the motive for the US govt to hack Sony and then accuse DPRK? Distract the public from the CIA torture report? Something else?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:New Study Adds to Skepticism Among Experts That North Kor... by meowface on Friday December 26, 2014 @10:44AM (#8799081)

This is not a hacking feat at all. Perhaps if this was the DoD and not Sony.

Extracting and exfiltrating many TB of data would take a bit of experience, but even some experienced script kiddies could likely get a foothold on Sony's network without much difficulty.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:New Study Adds to Skepticism Among Experts That North Kor... by TillE on Friday December 26, 2014 @10:38AM (#8799065)

> the capacity to pull this sort of hacking feat on demand

> that can hack any large corporation

That's not how hacking works. Even if you have a collection of zero-day exploits, it's entirely dependent on the software and configuration of a target's computer systems. Or your own luck with social engineering.

[ Parent | on HN ]