The FBI stands firmly behind its accusations against North Korea

Although numerous analysts have expressed their doubt of the validity of the FBI’s claims that North Korea was responsible for the recent cyberattack on Sony Pictures, the FBI has stood firmly behind its accusation. Now the agency is saying that the hackers “got sloppy” when they attempted to mask their IP addresses, which allowed the FBI to trace the cyberattack back to North Korea. 

North Korean hackers left footprints when they breached Sony Pictures Entertainment late last year, the director of the FBI said Wednesday. Despite some disagreement about the source of the cyberattack on Sony, FBI Director James Comey again pointed the finger at North Korea. Hackers “got sloppy” when attempting to mask their IP addresses, showing investigators that some emails from the hackers to Sony employees came from Internet connections used only by North Korea, Comey said at a cybersecurity conference in New York City. The Sony attack had “clear links” to malware developed in North Korea, the Associated Press quoted Comey as saying. “I have very high confidence about this attribution to North Korea, as does the entire intelligence community,” the AP quoted him as saying.