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FBI director confident North Korea was behind cyberattack despite skepticism

January 7, 2015
James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, speaks at the International Conference on Cyber Security at Fordham University, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015, in New York. Clapper says the cyberattack against Sony demonstrated a new threat from North Korea. He also warned that North Korea will continue the attacks against American interests unless the United States "pushes back." (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, speaks at the International Conference on Cyber Security at Fordham University, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015, in New York. Clapper says the cyberattack against Sony demonstrated a new threat from North Korea. He also warned that North Korea will continue the attacks against American interests unless the United States “pushes back.” (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

NEW YORK (AP) — FBI Director James Comey says he’s confident that North Korea was behind the cyberattack on Sony.

Comey said Wednesday that threats made against Sony were traced to IP addresses used exclusively by the North Koreans. He made the remarks at a cybersecurity conference at New York’s Fordham University.

Comey said there was evidence that North Korea had sought to use proxy servers to conceal the Sony hack. But he says they sometimes “got sloppy” and didn’t use the servers.

Comey predicted that North Korea would try to strike again.

Earlier Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said North Korea will continue the attacks against American interests unless the United States “pushes back.”

Others tend to disagree with the FBI’s confident claims.

“State-sponsored attackers don’t create cool names for themselves like ‘Guardians of Peace’ and promote their activity to the public,” said cybersecurity expert Lucas Zaichkowsky.

He said the details he has seen point instead to hacktivists, who break into computers to make a political point, often one involving the free exchange of information on the Internet. Hacktivists targeted Sony in the past.

It would be unusual if North Korea was behind the breach, said Darren Hayes, director of cybersecurity at Pace University’s computer science school.

“However, there are numerous hackers for hire” in some of the shadowy corners of the Internet, he said. “If Kim Jong Un has developed his own rank-and-file cyberattack unit, with sophisticated capabilities, then we should be very concerned.”

One Comment

  1. Lucas Zaichkowsky

    January 7, 2015 at 1:58 PM

    My comments were made before the FBI announcement. In light of that and other information received, I now support the attribution of North Korea.

    Reply