North Korea denies involvement in Sony hack

North Korea denies involvement in Sony entertainment hacking attack. One of the theories was that the country was behind the attack in revenge for a comedy Sony is making about the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

In an official statement, the North Korean government said it was not aware of the attack. That reports The Washington Post based on the statement. The North Koreans do think it deserved, and they suggest that sympathizers of the dictatorship are behind the attack. North Korea’s anger focuses on a Seth Rogen and James Franco film in which two journalists must assassinate the North Korean leader.

Despite North Korea’s denial, the country is still suspicious. Security firm Symantec said the attack used at least one command-and-control server that was used in previous malware attacks on South Korea, which may have been carried out by North Korea. Such servers can be used to send new instructions to malware. That indicates that the same group is behind the attacks on South Korea and Sony. Disks were also erased in the attacks on South Korea.

In the attack on Sony, computers belonging to thousands of employees were made inaccessible by data erasure and the data of 47,000 Sony employees and former employees was also stolen. In the meantime, the hackers have started publishing the data they have stolen, including salary details. Five Sony films still in theaters after the attack have also appeared on the internet, but it is not certain that this has anything to do with the hack.

The hackers appear to have published their data from a hotel in Thailand, Bloomberg news agency reported. It is unknown if the hackers were physically in the hotel, or if they hacked into the hotel’s connection and used it as a proxy. The latter is more likely: the attackers have published large amounts of documents, and hotel Wi-Fi is not known for its high speed. The attackers also allegedly used the network of a Thai university.