Wednesday, December 17, 2014

HOLLYWOOD REPORTER article: North Korea probably not behind the Sony cyberhacking.

Inside the studio, though, sources say there is little evidence that North Korea is behind the attack. Cybersecurity expert Hemanshu Nigam also finds it hard to believe that North Korea is the perpetrator. Instead, he theorizes an employee or ex-employee with administrative access privileges is a more likely suspect. For the studio — which has laid off hundreds of employees over the past year in an effort to contain costs — the possibility of a disgruntled employee wreaking havoc is very real.
"If terabytes of data left the Sony networks, their network detection systems would have noticed easily," explains Nigam. "It would also take months for a hacker to figure out the topography of the Sony networks to know where critical assets are stored and to have access to the decryption keys needed to open up the screeners that have been leaked." In addition, he says, "Hackers don't use such things as Hushmail, Dropbox and Facebook when they want to engage in what amounts to criminal activity. Real hackers know that these sites collect access logs, IP addresses and work with law enforcement. It is possible that North Korean-sponsored hackers were working with someone on the inside. But it is more likely a ruse to shift blame, knowing the distaste the North Korean regime has for Sony Pictures."

Link to the article excerpted above: Sony Hack: Studio Security Points to Inside Job
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sony-hack-studio-security-points-753509#

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