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Despite of breaching the network used by the North Korean hackers years ago before the cyber attack on Sony, American spies were not been able to warn Sony that it was about to be targeted.
Us intelligence agencies hacked into North Korea’s system in early 2010 and were able to create an “early warning system” of spyware that kept them informed of the Communist hackers’ activities, according to the New York Times.
The access to Pyongyang’s network allowed them to gather the evidence that North Korea was behind Sony attack and was convincing enough for President Barack Obama to make the accusation in public.
However it was too late and North Korean hackers had stolen and published thousands of the studio’s confidential files.
A German magazine Der Spiegel published a classified National Security Agency (NSA) file which quotes that one US operative as admitting that American access to North Korean systems was “next to nothing”. The Americans were able to hack their South Korean allies and found that Seoul’s agents were having more success in penetrating the North’s systems.
Apparently, the fruits of South Korean spies were stolen by USA but later ramped up their own efforts to target the Pyonyang. An NSA official wrote “You don’t want to rely on an untrusted actor to do your work for you,”
Previously North Korea publically said in June that film’s release would be considered as “an act of war”, and just five months after some North Korean hackers emerged with the name “the Guardians of Peace” began publishing Sony’s internal files and demanded that the film be cancelled.
Some cyber security experts have questioned whether North Korea was behind the attack but the US government has been unusually adamant in its public accusations.
