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Sony Pictures had initially planned to release the movie, The Interview in the upcoming holiday season at the time. The film is a satire comedy, centered about a way to assassinate Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader of North Korea. In the weeks prior to the release of the film, Sony experienced several cyberattacks believed to be the tasks assigned by hackers by North Korea working for the government. The hacker group Guardian of Peace, had a “malware going through all the computers, stealing, erasing sensitive information, and eradicating most of the network at Sony” (Berghel).
The hackers stole data from the servers at Sony, including executive e-mails and personal information about actors such as salaries, addresses, and more. The data “was then released online via social media and other internet outlets, revealing personal information on the web” (Kremlin).
In spite of the fact that Sony Picture Entertainment was hacked there still wasn’t a definitive explanation if North Korea were the ones who initiated the cyber-attack.
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While official reports released by the FBI claim that the North Korean government was responsible for the attacks. Some believe that it was not North Korea, but more than likely someone else, for instance an ex-worker who might have been discharged from the company as even U.S. officials said that “accidents can happen” (Daugirdas). There have been speculations that an insider threat could have been the result of this cyber-attack on Sony. The only answer is finding the causes and effects during the time of the attack.
When trailers of the film came out in the summer of 2014 there was an uproar throughout the whole social media spectrum.
Which made enough noise and plenty of publicity to get the attention of some North Korea officials and certainly to the supreme leader of North Korea Kim Jong Un. Shortly after the film’s trailer hit the big screen and all-round in the media, North Korea’s UN ambassador Ja Song Nam wrote a letter of complaint to UN’s secretary general Ban Ki-moon. Stating that “to allow the production and distribution of such a film on the assassination of an incumbent head of a sovereign state should be regarded as the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism as well as an act of war, The United States authorities should take immediate and appropriate actions to ban the production and distribution of the aforementioned film; otherwise, it will be fully responsible for encouraging and sponsoring terrorism” (Reuters). This led to overwhelming amounts of outrageous takes and concerns from the country of North Korea. After the letter of complaint from Ja Song Nam, the film was postponed, which then soon after was speculated to be released on a different platform and the cyber hack from Guardians of Peace happened the upcoming fall.
The Interview film, was one of the many causes if not the main cause of the entire cyber-attacks being committed on Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE). Although there were no ties with North Korea according to Federal Bureau of Investigations. Employees were walking into their jobs on November 24 of 2014, many employees had a glowing neon skeleton on their personal computers. At first some thought it was a joke or a simple gag going around in the offices of their work place at Sony. What they did not realize was they were being attacked by a group called Guardians of the Peace (GOP). The attack was made from a political standpoint. There was a threat to be made to get a point across or at least be known why they were committing these cyber-attacks on the company. The attacks had wiped information from their servers, systems, and plenty other of technology around the offices. Earlier before the cyber-attack had happened to the company Sony executives “had received a ransom note from 'God'sApstls,' albeit with a pecuniary rather than political demand and no apparent link to North Korea” (Haggard). Which seems a bit odd knowing there was no apparent link to North Korea being made. After a few days since the attack on SPE and the glowing skeleton on employees monitors. There were files being leaked by the hackers, coming from different variations of information from the company and its several employees and famous actors on their payroll.
Guardians of Peace also known as the GOP, are a group of hackers, despite the fact that there is little to nothing known about them except for the fact that the group was behind the cyber-attack on Sony. Not confirmed if they were hired or assigned by the officials of North Korea. The FBI had claimed that the “intrusion into Sony’s network consisted of the deployment of destructive malware and the stealing of exclusive information as well as employees’ personally identifiable information and confidential communications” (FBI.gov). Gathered by the evidence of how the “Technical analysis of the data deletion malware used in this attack revealed links to other malware that the FBI knows North Korean previously developed” (FBI.gov), stated by the FBI which had allowed them to find orthodox coding to narrow it down to how it was used. A notable example to understand what it means, if a person has a car and decides to change the engine inside of it, it is the same as how the malware works, the car seems to look the same, but is deemed differently on how it runs and how fast it goes is completely different from before. The next press released evidence the FBI shared was that the “IP address were from a North Korean organization that was also coded into the malware attack, and that the tools used against Sony had similarities to the attack on South Korean banks” (FBI.gov). These evidences were the deciding factors for the FBI to conclude that the North Koreans were involved in the cyber-attacks, because some of the methods they found were that were tied to North Korea, but some believe the information brought to the attention was too minuscule to support their reasoning.
There happens to be a clear reason for there to be a motive for Sony to be attacked the way that they were. The attacks have North Korea written all over them but alas the country and plenty of their representatives deny any and all of allegations made. The film is clearly made to make fun of North Korea and is deemed to be tasteless by many outside (N. Korea) the U.S. and some of the population in the U.S. can agree for the some of the most part. The Guardians of the Peace wanted to get people away from watching the movie and hopefully make a point across by making threats to Sony employees leaving an “ominous note threatened physical harm… if they did not sign a denunciation of the firm” (Haggard). This leads to a couple of theories that can be applied to these acts of criminality from the group of hackers known as the GOP.
Differential association theory can be applied to these hacktivists bringing their political beliefs and points to be made towards Sony and cyber warfare and computer hacking being done to this certain company. Although hacking can be taught through other people and everything is managed to be taught and learned, especially criminal behavior among these groups of hackers. “Behavior is learned in intimate personal groups” (Kremlin). Another form of theory that can also be applied to these unfortunate events made is routine activity theory. There is “a motivated offender, a suitable target, and a lack of a capable guardianship” (Kremlin). Which can be certainly applied to the hackers and why they committed the computing hack.
References
Summary: Guardians Of The Peace Hacking Sony. (2024, Feb 02). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/summary-guardians-of-the-peace-hacking-sony-essay
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