Not N. Korea but Russia?
Jeffrey Carr, CEO of security firm Taia Global, maintained in a recent interview with Forbes that one or more Russian hackers were in Sony Pictures Entertainment’s network at the time of the Sony breach, and continue to have access to that network today.
He added that Taia Global analyzed the hackers’ English-language messages right after the incident to come to the conclusion that they have a linguistic structure close to that of the Russian language.
“The Russians may have just been working unwittingly alongside the Guardians of Peace hackers who were thought to have shut down Sony for its role in the production of The Interview,” he said. He bases his claims on Sony Pictures’ e-mails and what he heard from Yama Tough, a hacker who stole and released the source code for a 2006 version of Symantec’s Norton antivirus software. However, Sony Pictures has made no official response to the remarks.
Under the circumstances, it seems to be more difficult for the U.S. government to blame North Korea as the sole mastermind of the incident. The North has denied its involvement in the hacking.