North Korea Hails Attack on Sony

North Korea says it doesn’t know who is behind the massive and embarrassing hack of Sony Pictures. But their government certainly isn’t upset that it happened.

Hackers recently stolen and posted online over 100 Terabytes(1 terabyte = 1,000 gigabytes) of data from the studio, including full movies, private employee records and revealing internal memos. Sony Pictures executives are zeroing in on North Korea as the source of the cyber attack that crippled its computer systems last week Computers and corporate email accounts were rendered useless for several days. Sensitive documents, like spreadsheets of employee salaries, were pilfered and leaked. Several Sony films — like the upcoming remake of the musical “Annie” and Brad Pitt’s “Fury” — were posted to illicit websites.

“This theft of Sony materials and the release of employee and other information are malicious criminal acts, and we are working closely with law enforcement,” Sony studio bosses Michael Lynton & Amy Pascal wrote in an internal memo.

The KCNA — North Korea’s state-run propaganda arm — applauded the attack. “The hacking into the SONY Pictures might be a righteous deed of the supporters and sympathizers with the DPRK,” it said, using the acronym of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.The hacking is so fatal that all the systems of the company have been paralyzed, causing the overall suspension of the work and supposedly a huge ensuing loss.”

A possible motive for the North Koreans is a new movie. “The Interview,” is a comedy starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, who play TV people trying to score an interview with Kim Jong Un ;Leader of North Korea. But they are recruited by the CIA to take Kim out.

North Korea’s response was riddled with anti-U.S. and anti-South Korea rhetoric.
The statement didn’t outright say the North Korean government was not responsible. But the KCNA called North Korean involvement “a wild rumor” and the government suggested it couldn’t be behind a cyber attack on “a country far across the ocean.” We do not know where in America the SONY Pictures is situated and for what wrongdoings it became the target of the attack nor we feel the need to know about it.”

North Korea said it would view the Seth Rogen and James Franco movie as an “act of war,” and said the movie depicts “a terrorist act while hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK.”
“The Interview” is still scheduled to be released on December 25.