The Sony breach, which intelligence officials confidently attributed to North Korea, hit the cybersecurity world like Jaws hit movie theaters in an earlier era. It sparked an era of increasingly muscular responses to major hacks — including financial sanctions and criminal indictments that have targeted not just North Korea but also Russia, China and Iran. The North Korea attribution initially sparked widespread doubts among cybersecurity researchers who suspected an inside job and demanded more evidence than the FBI was willing to give. U.S. intelligence and national security officials including former Trump National Security Council member Fiona Hill have warned that Russia promoted the Ukraine conspiracy theory to undermine its responsibility for the hack. The department would also notify companies to give them a chance to address national security concerns first.

Source: Washington Post November 27, 2019 12:22 UTC