Sony Hack An Inside Job, Not The Work Of North Korean Terrorists, Cybersecurity Experts Say
Despite the backlash against North Korea ever since Sony's massive hack took place, a new report claims that there might be an alternative angle to the story. Sony hack might be inside job and not North Korea based on the investigation of US cybersecurity experts.
According to leading cybersecurity firm, Norse Corp, the Sony hack might not be masterminded by North Korean cyberterrorists as weeks of reports claimed, after the FBI released its findings on Dec. 19. Instead, a former employee of the company might be the main culprit, with the help of other five more people. The former employee is said to be a Sony veteran who has the necessary technical background to carry out the attack.
The senior vice president of Norse, Kurt Stammberger claimed that with the help of Sony's leaked human resources documents, which were cross-referenced with communications on hacker chat rooms, North Korea could not be behind the attack. "When the FBI made this announcement, just a few days after the attack was made public, it raised eyebrows in the community because it's hard to do that kind of an attribution that quickly - it's almost unheard of," Stammberger revealed to the Bloomberg News in a telephone interview from San Francisco. "All the leads that we did turn up that had a Korean connection turned out to be dead ends," Stammberger added. Norse company already shared this vital finding to the FBI, which was said to be open and grateful with the help.
In a statement however, FBI said the organisation is standing by its initial findings: that the North Korean government is behind the massive attack. According to Politico, where the statement is published, information implicating other suspects than North Korea is still not that credible. The cybersecurity experts responded that even though they might not necessarily agree with the Feds, they are not saying the organization is wrong with its main findings. Cybersecurity experts claimed that the FBI might have pertinent information that points directly to North Korea - information that they, even if they are experts, do not have access to. The experts are not discounting any angle.