Maybe I'm old fashioned but I take any hacking blame from gov to gov as likely propaganda.
The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea
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Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea
#12Of note: The Shadow Brokers hinted at the same thing a few weeks back.
"In May, No dumps, theshadowbrokers is eating popcorn and watching "Your Fired" and WannaCry. Is being very strange behavior for crimeware? Killswitch? Crimeware is caring about target country? The oracle is telling theshadowbrokers North Korea is being responsible for the global cyber attack Wanna Cry. Nukes and cyber attacks, America has to go to war, no other choices! (Sarcasm) No new ZeroDays."
Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea
#13The NSA has lost all credibility, as far as I am concerned.
I mean, at least find another whipping boy... this DPRK attribution is getting old hat
Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea
#14The NSA has lost all credibility, as far as I am concerned.
> The NSA is not credible.
- Somewhat technical internet user
Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea
#15Though the hackers raised $140,000 in bitcoin, a form of digital currency, so far they have not cashed it in, the analysts said. That is likely because an operational error has made the transactions easy to track, including by law enforcement.
As a result, no online currency exchange will touch it, said Jake Williams, founder of Rendition Infosec, a cybersecurity firm. “This is like knowingly taking tainted bills from a bank robbery,” he said.
Could anyone give some more details about this?
Does a trustworthy bitcoin mixer exist? Would the attackers be able to use it to launder the coins?
EDIT: Does anyone know anything about the operational error mentioned in the article?
The coins are easy to track, but that's the default for bitcoin. Mixing the coins should restore anonymity in most cases, right? And at that point it would be possible to move the coins back to an exchange, or sell them on localbitcoins.
On the other hand, have the exchanges blacklisted most of the large mixers? It seems like it should be theoretically possible to track whether coins have been mixed. Then exchanges could simply close any account that receives significant sums of tumbled coins.
Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea
#16If this checks out, it's very surprising. I would assume they wouldn't have the skills for pulling out something so massive like this.
Not that suprising, remember that they also hacked Sony. The Lazarus group (one of the names for the DPRK APT group) is pretty sophisticated.
Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea
#17If this checks out, it's very surprising. I would assume they wouldn't have the skills for pulling out something so massive like this.
The major concern for the US military when attacking North Korea was not nukes, but military hackers inside a bunker disrupting everything. There probably is a lot of know-how there. The Sony hack was also attributed to North Korea.
Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea
#18The NSA has lost all credibility, as far as I am concerned.
And this is based on what, exactly ?
If you're going to make hyperbolic statements maybe some clarifications would be useful.
Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea
#19If this checks out, it's very surprising. I would assume they wouldn't have the skills for pulling out something so massive like this.
Basing your malware on a tool leaked from the NSA probably makes it easier.
Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea
#20Though the hackers raised $140,000 in bitcoin, a form of digital currency, so far they have not cashed it in, the analysts said. That is likely because an operational error has made the transactions easy to track, including by law enforcement. As a result, no online currency exchange will touch it, said Jake Williams, founder of Rendition Infosec, a cybersecurity firm. “This is like knowingly taking tainted bills fro…
I don't understand. Isn't the point of bitcoin that it doesn't need a central authority?
If Bitcoin has evolved to the point where you need to have currency exchanges that act just like banks... what's the point?