President Obama Sanctions North Korea After Sony Cyberattack

[jakeXT]

Source: ABC News

President Obama has signed an executive order imposing new sanctions on North Korea following last month’s cyber-attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment.

In issuing the order, Obama accuses North Korea of “destructive, coercive cyber-related actions during November and December,” calling them a “continuing threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States.”

Before leaving for his Hawaii vacation, the president had said he would respond to the attack “proportionally” in a time and manner of his choosing. Today's action is “the first aspect of our response,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement.

The order authorizes the Treasury Department to shutdown access to the U.S. financial system, prohibiting transactions and freezing assets, for specific officials and entities of the DPRK and anyone who supports them.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-sanctions-north-korea-sony-cyberattack/story?id=27965524

[randys1]

1. Between the Republican Party officially supporting the KGB over the USA and this

I wonder what is going to happen next.

I sure hope war isnt on the schedule

[Plucketeer]

4. War is ALWAYS in the lineup

It's the avoidance of it that presents a challenge!

[cosmicone]

2. The evidence is now leaning towards Sony and/or insiders

being responsible for the hack which resulted in Sony making record profits on an otherwise trash film.

Sanctions on NK are counterproductive especially before all the evidence is in.

I'd like to see testimony under oath by Sony execs that they were not directly or indirectly responsible for the hack.

[jakeXT]

3. It's not like Afghanistan or Iraq attacked the US

Moscow needs North Korean cooperation in boosting natural gas exports to South Korea as Gazprom wants to build a gas pipeline through North Korea to reach its southern neighbor.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/putin-spokesman-confirms-north-korean-leader-invited-to-visit-moscow-/513687.html

[jeff47]

5. Not really.

So far, the evidence I've seen of it being an "insider" consists of
1) It was off-the-shelf malware
2) There were hard-coded paths in the malware.
3) The author thinks there would be a different flow of events. Such as immediately attacking about the Interview instead of attempting extortion first.

Those really aren't particularly compelling reasons to say it is any particular group.

For 1, if you're going to attack someone, you'd use off-the-shelf software if at all possible to avoid exposing your unique software.

For 2, The typical model of such an attack is recon first, and then vacuum up as much as you can. You'd get those hard-coded paths on your recon, put it in the off-the-shelf software, and let the off-the-shelf package be found as it uploads as much as possible.

For 3, North Korea's pretty famous for needing money. Also, I don't think we can say how the North Korean government would or would not behave based on how we'd behave.

The main reason why "insider" doesn't look right to me is why would an insider have to use the Internet? If it was someone who knew those hard-coded paths and what they lead to, they could also have copied the data onto a thumb drive while they were an insider. They'd also have access such that they did not have to steal an executive's credentials, or could have stolen the credentials much more covertly.

[former9thward]

8. No, they are not making record profits.

They made $1 million the first weekend which is a petty amount for a major film. Seth Rogan films have been making around $250 million lately. They have a long, long way to go. Also the hack released very damaging emails by Sony executives. Hardly something Sony would do.

[summerschild]

6. Remember that North Korea was on PNAC's wish list.

NK was among those "ENEMIES" that included Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc., PNAC listed as their targets for the new W.Bush adminstration, while they announced they would need something like another Pearl Harbor to glean the kind of support they needed to accomplish their imperial dreams.

We don't want to stumble into another war for trumped up reasons. Be very watchful when TPTB start looking for reasons they should be hated and reviled.

[Purveyor]

7. LOL. N.Korea have been 'sanctioned' by the US since the 50's and what has

the result been? The same as it will be now.

[PSPS]

9. Aw, geez. Not this canard again.

Our leader has spoken.

[Kablooie]

10. I thought we were pretty much sanctioning the hell out of them already.

[elias49]

11. Pathetic and disappointing of the President