Thursday, September 6, 2018

US DOJ Charges North Korean Programmer With 2014 Sony Attack

The U.S. Department of Justice has charged a North Korean programmer with coordinating the devastating, 2014 attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, along with a whole host of other cyber-attacks across the world. According to criminal charges announced by the Justice Department, Park Jin Hyok (a/k/a Jin Hyok Park and Pak Jin Hek) coordinated the efforts of a North Korean hacking team, which not only was respondible for the devastating attack on Sony Pictures, but also the WannaCry 2.0 ransomware attack, a major bank theft in Bangladesh, along with a long list of other crimes. The DOJ said Park's effort caused "damage to massive amounts of computer hardware, and the extensive loss of data, money and other resources". The devastating attacks on Sony happened in November of 2014, after the studio released the comedy spoof "The Interview" that featured Seth Rogen and James Franco. That hack completely shut down the corporate network of Sony Pictures.