While Donald Trump and
Vladimir Putin boast of reviving the arms race, Kim Jong-un 3rd Supreme
Leader of North Korea sits alone at the Big Boy
table having released in May 2017
western cyber weapons
against the world - -. makes you wanna
cry.
Somehow President Trump still ignorantly muses on how he
will reign-in the South Korean mad-man. He seems not to know that, that
time, is over.
Right before our eyes the world stage has changed. Kim
Jong-un has found a way to humble the world without firing a shot, without
detonating a bomb or launching a missile. He is the new power and he has
crowned himself before the world.
He has made the world safer by taking his throne without
violence.
New sanctions against North Korea?
Lets think this through.
Dare we anger the new king?
Someone was not minding the store when WannaCry was
pilfered from the National Security Administration (NSA) some time earlier
in 2017. And there was no alarm sounded until it’s release.
While Putin and Trump are mired in their trash talk, Kim
Jong-un ponders his next move.
1 Kings 20:11 (KJV)
11 And the
king of Israel answered and said, Tell him, Let not him that girdeth
on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.
Supporting Documentation
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-northkorea/u-s-blames-north-korea-for-wannacry-cyber-attack-idUSKBN1ED00Q
December 18, 2017
U.S. blames North Korea for 'WannaCry' cyber attack
Reuters Staff/ By Dustin Volz
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration has
publicly blamed North Korea for unleashing the so-called WannaCry cyber
attack that crippled hospitals, banks and other companies across the globe
earlier this year.
"The attack was widespread and cost billions, and North
Korea is directly responsible," Tom Bossert, homeland security adviser to
President Donald Trump, wrote in a piece published on Monday night in the
Wall Street Journal.
"North Korea has acted especially badly, largely
unchecked, for more than a decade, and its malicious behavior is growing
more egregious," Bossert wrote. "WannaCry was indiscriminately reckless."
The White House was expected to follow up on Tuesday with
a more formal statement blaming Pyongyang, according to a senior
administration official.
The U.S. government has assessed with a "very high level
of confidence" that a hacking entity known as Lazarus Group, which works on
behalf of the North Korean government, carried out the WannaCry attack, said
the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the
government’s investigation.
Lazarus Group is widely believed by security researchers
and U.S. officials to have been responsible for the 2014 hack of Sony
Pictures Entertainment that destroyed files, leaked corporate communications
online and led to the departure of several top studio executives.
North Korean government representatives could not be
immediately reached for comment. The country has repeatedly denied
responsibility for WannaCry and called other allegations about cyber attacks
a smear campaign.
Washington’s public condemnation does not include any
indictments or name specific individuals, the administration official said,
adding the shaming was designed to hold Pyongyang accountable for its
actions and "erode and undercut their ability to launch attacks."
The accusation comes as worries mount about North Korea’s
hacking capabilities and its nuclear weapons program.
‘PATTERN OF MISBEHAVING’
Many security researchers, including the cyber firm
Symantec , as well as the British government, have already concluded that
North Korea was likely behind the WannaCry attack, which quickly unfurled
across the globe in May to infect more than 300,000 computers in 150
countries.
Considered unprecedented in scale at the time, WannaCry
knocked British hospitals offline, forcing thousands of patients to
reschedule appointments and disrupted infrastructure and businesses around
the world.
The attack originally looked like a ransomware campaign,
where hackers encrypt a targeted computer and demand payment to recover
files. Some experts later concluded the ransom threat may have been a
distraction intended to disguise a more destructive intent.
A separate but similar attack in June, known as NotPetya,
hit Ukraine and other nations and caused an estimated $300 million in
damages to international shipper FedEx.
Binary code is seen on a screen against a North Korean
flag in this illustration photo November 1, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas
White/Illustration
Some researchers have said they believed WannaCry was
deployed accidentally by North Korea as hackers were developing the code.
The senior administration official declined to comment about whether U.S.
intelligence was able to discern if the attack was deliberate.
"What we see is a continued pattern of North Korea
misbehaving, whether destructive cyber attacks, hacking for financial gain,
or targeting infrastructure around the globe," the official said.
WannaCry was made possible by a flaw in Microsoft’s
Windows software, which was discovered by the U.S. National Security Agency
and then used by the NSA to build a hacking tool for its own use.
In a devastating NSA security breach, that hacking tool
and others were published online by the Shadow Brokers, a mysterious group
that regularly posts cryptic taunts toward the U.S. government.
The fact that WannaCry was made possible by the NSA led
to sharp criticism from Microsoft President Brad Smith and others who
believe the NSA should disclose vulnerabilities it finds so that they can be
fixed, rather then hoarding that knowledge to carry out attacks.
Smith said WannaCry provided "yet another example of why
the stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments is such a problem."
U.S. officials have pushed back on those assertions,
saying the administration discloses most computer flaws that government
agencies detect.
Last month, the White House published its rules for
deciding whether to disclose cyber security flaws or keep them secret as
part of an effort to be more transparent about the inter-agency process
involved in weighing disclosure.
Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Jonathan Weber and
Peter Cooney
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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