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The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

washingtonpost.com

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Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#181

Post by rand77763 »

finolex1 wrote: post #168
rsync wrote: post #129

The only rational response to this is deep, deep skepticism. In the old days of the USSR, while very difficult, it was at least conceivable that you could just fly to moscow and see if they were eating their children there or burning priests or god knows whatever else. There was a natural limit to the deception that could occur and further a normal person could make conclusions about the things they saw with their ow…

I share your skepticism as well, but I wouldn't be too dismissive of North Korean Cyber capabilities either. They do have a specialized cyber warfare unit, handpick and train their soldiers extremely intensively ( https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/02/north-kor... ). Their performances in other international competitions, like the International Math Olympiad ( https://www.imo-official.org/country_team_r.…

What exactly does a math competition have to do with ransomware?

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#182

Post by qeternity »

carvalho wrote: post #12

Of 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 t…

Do you have a link for this? Where are they releasing these comms?

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#183

Post by dx034 »

tyingq wrote: post #70
jorblumesea wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also makes some practical sense, as NK regime has little in the way of hard foreign currency and bitcoins would be a great source of untraceable unsactionable income. Their previous adventures in illegal activities (counterfeit bills, meth, prostitution and slave labor) show they are not above deviousness to achieve stable income for the Kim state.

Not sure ~$150k in Bitcoin is that interesting to the DPRK.

It is. They probably hoped for much more but sanctions by nearly all states in the world mean that North Korea desperately needs FX reserves. For a state where very few people have access to material that US$ can buy, a few hundred k$ can be a lot of money.

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#184

Post by dx034 »

discordance wrote: post #117
ryanlol wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's trivial to exchange Bitcoins anonymously to cash almost anywhere in the world.

Not in volumes that count

$100k over a few weeks and exchanges shouldn't be too noticeable. Especially if you use personnel from several embassies.

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#185

Post by blfr »

atemerev wrote: post #162
rsync wrote: post #129

The only rational response to this is deep, deep skepticism. In the old days of the USSR, while very difficult, it was at least conceivable that you could just fly to moscow and see if they were eating their children there or burning priests or god knows whatever else. There was a natural limit to the deception that could occur and further a normal person could make conclusions about the things they saw with their ow…

You could fly to Moscow, but what you could see here was a far cry from a normal life of a Soviet citizen. At the same time, anti-Soviet propaganda also took many things wrong. Truth always takes a personal effort to discover; it can't be spoon-fed by the New York Times, or Pravda, or Facebook.

What did anti-Soviet propaganda "take wrong"? Even after reading Bukowski, Solzhenitsyn, and the Black Book of Communism, I find it hard to imagine an atrocity which communists didn't commit.

And not as isolated incident of abuse of power, usually on a mass scale. They liked their genocides like they liked their mines and factories -- huge.

Not to mention the economic system of constant shortages where you had to bribe everyone, including the meat store clerk.

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#186

Post by cm2187 »

I wonder where hacking becomes an act of war vs a mere annoyance. Where is the red line? Shutting down a power plant? Shutting down hospitals? Disrupting a nuclear weapon factory? Any of these, if done with conventional weapons, would clearly constitute an act of war. But it seems that no one seems ready to take any action even when the aggressor is clearly identified.

One could argue: great, it means less wars, let's not overreact over a few bits flipped in a machine. I'd argue the contrary. If countries do not respond militarily to hacking aggressions, it will only make them escalate with increasingly serious consequences (disrupting hospitals to me is already a pretty severe consequence). There needs to be some form of accountability.

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#187

Post by davidgerard »

> 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.

This is incorrect - crypto exchanges have had no problem cashing in bags of dyed notes before, e.g. the coins from the Bitfinex hack. They really just do not care.

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#188

Post by pulse7 »

finolex1 wrote: post #168
rsync wrote: post #129

The only rational response to this is deep, deep skepticism. In the old days of the USSR, while very difficult, it was at least conceivable that you could just fly to moscow and see if they were eating their children there or burning priests or god knows whatever else. There was a natural limit to the deception that could occur and further a normal person could make conclusions about the things they saw with their ow…

I share your skepticism as well, but I wouldn't be too dismissive of North Korean Cyber capabilities either. They do have a specialized cyber warfare unit, handpick and train their soldiers extremely intensively ( https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/02/north-kor... ). Their performances in other international competitions, like the International Math Olympiad ( https://www.imo-official.org/country_team_r.…

Regarding "Their performances in ... International Math Olympiad": they were disqualified many times. I was at IMO in Istanbul in 1993 and they were disqualified, becuase they cheated (their official translator provided them solutions to the problems and it was discovered). So it may be possible that these "performances" don't indicate any such ability...

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#190

Post by pulse7 »

rand77763 wrote: post #181
finolex1 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share your skepticism as well, but I wouldn't be too dismissive of North Korean Cyber capabilities either. They do have a specialized cyber warfare unit, handpick and train their soldiers extremely intensively ( https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/02/north-kor... ). Their performances in other international competitions, like the International Math Olympiad ( https://www.imo-official.org/country_team_r.…

What exactly does a math competition have to do with ransomware?

If you are skilled in math, you will be better/faster in programming anything - including ransomware...
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