North Korea Denies Sony Hack Allegations

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This article originally appeared at The WHIR

An anonymous North Korean diplomat told the Voice of America broadcast network Wednesday that North Korea did not hack Sony Pictures Entertainment last week. Investigators had found hacking tools previously used by North Korea were used against Sony, according to Reuters, possibly indicating otherwise.

“My country publicly declared that it would follow international norms banning hacking and piracy,” the diplomat said. He called widespread speculation that North Korea was responsible for the attack “another fabrication targeting the country.”

Reuters reports an internal Sony memo told staff it is uncertain of the “full scope of information that the hackers might have or release,” and that the company is still struggling to bring its network completely online, 10 days after the initial attack.

The hacking tool Reuters refers to is surely the malware which The New York Times reports was the subject of an FBI warning issued Monday evening. That malware was written in Korean, and is designed to erase the contents of an infected computer.

Hackers also published confidential Deloitte data to Pastebin on Wednesday, which is alleged to have come from the same attack at Sony.

Bloomberg reports that Sony’s internal investigation has identified a North Korean group called DarkSeoul in the attack. DarkSeoul is blamed for attacks on three South Korean banks and two broadcasters last year.

Hacks by North Korea against South Korean targets have been alleged for years, while a rash of attacks by mysterious hackers against banks and financial targets have struck the US this year, including one revealed by FireEye on Monday.

In the immediate aftermath a spokesman for North Korea said: “The hostile forces are relating everything to the DPRK (North Korea). I kindly advise you to just wait and see.” North Korea has previously referred to the US and South Korea as hostile forces.

The hack and its consequences will continue to play out as the investigation continues and the hackers decide what to with the rest of the data, of which 40GB out of 100TB have been released, by Gizmodo’s count.

This article originally appeared at: http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/north-korea-denies-sony-hack-allegations