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In December, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation said that North Korea was definitively responsible for hacking Sony Pictures, many doubted the accuracy of their report.
How could a country such as North Korea that is not known for being high-tech, pull of a complex hack.
Others questioned how the United States could conclude so quickly that the North Koreans were behind the Sony attack.
It now has come to light, that the U.S. was in possession of inside information.
According to different reports from a leading national newspaper in the U.S. and a European daily, the U.S. knew Sony had been hacked by North Korea because the United States had previously hacked North Korea.
The National Security Agency or NSA has had secretive access to computers and networks in North Korea since 2010 said the reports.
Officials in the U.S. wanted tabs to be kept on North Korea’s nuclear program, any plans of attacking South Korea and its high-ranking government officials.
In 2013, North Korea attacked South Korea, crippling a number of the country’s leading media and financial organizations.
However, at one point, the IP addresses of the hackers were revealed and the same addresses appeared again during the hack on Sony.
Of course, it is quite easy for a good hacker to spoof an IP addresses or two. Some reports have suggested a disgruntled former employee at Sony was behind the hack and was leading federal officials in the wrong direction.
However, officials in the U.S. seemed completely sure that the FBI made a press release and President Barack Obama said he had confidence that the attack was carried out by North Korea leading to him approve a short time later sanctions against the North Koreans.
In one of the reports, the alleged attacks carried out by North Korea used to enter the Sony Pictures network were not new and no alarms went off until it was far too late.
Only later did investigators make a determination that North Korea stole a systems administrator’s credentials that allowed the hackers to roam freely within the Sony system.
