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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNew Clues In Sony Hack Point To Insiders, Away from DPRK
https://securityledger.com/2014/12/new-clues-in-sony-hack-point-to-insiders-away-from-dprk/
Researchers from the security firm Norse allege that their investigation of the hack of Sony has uncovered evidence that leads, decisively, away from North Korea as the source of the attack. Instead, the company alleges that a group of six individuals is behind the hack, at least one a former Sony Pictures Entertainment employee who worked in a technical role and had extensive knowledge of the companys network and operations.
If true, the allegations by Norse deal a serious blow to the governments account of the incident, which placed the blame squarely on hackers affiliated with the government of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, or DPRK. That accusation, first aired last week, has been the source of heated rhetoric from both Washington D.C. and Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.
Speaking to The Security Ledger, Kurt Stammberger, a Senior Vice President at Norse, said that his company identified six individuals with direct involvement in the hack, including two based in the U.S., one in Canada, one in Singapore and one in Thailand. The six include one former Sony employee, a ten-year veteran of the company who was laid off in May as part of a company-wide restructuring....
Much more at link...when we hear hoofbeats, we should indeed think "Horses!" and not "Zebras!"
Cha
(297,799 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)Weve examined the data released by the hackers and found a disproportionate number of women were laid off by Bain & Co., the consulting company brought in by Sony.
In the month that Lena2 left Sony March 2014 the payroll cuts were roughly equal to what Seth Rogen was paid for the Interview....
...The hacker name itselfthe Guardians of Peacemay be a reference to Star Wars. (Alternatively, because the last GOP presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, had served as CEO of Bain & Co, and was politically criticized for being unfair to women and representative of inequality, and because Bain had architected the Sony layoffs, the Hacked by #GOP warning may have been a political reference to and attack upon Bain, its perceived GOP ties, and the hackers professed fight for equality.)
The Twitter account carries a photo with Julian Assange.
Our research shows that the Sony leaker most likely worked like Private Bradley Manning or NSA contractor Edward Snowden, by downloading all of the material onto an external hard drive and walking out. The hacking was not primarily internet-based hack...
HUGE Disclaimer--I'm not an expert on this kind of stuff; I couldn't hope to do this sort of thing in a million years. I'm only putting this out as a conversation starter/theory builder. I've no idea if this website is reliable or if they get creative, either--but I think the idea is certainly an interesting one--particularly with the involvement of Bain!
Orsino
(37,428 posts)Doesn't even rise to circumstantial.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Unless there are men named Amy and Maria, that, on first glance, anyway, looks odd. And given their track record it's not at all outside the realm of possibility. I am starting to think SONY doesn't just have a "hacking" problem, they have a "woman" problem:
Sony execs accused of racism, sexual harassment by black female worker in hacked email: report
Another email hacked from Sony Pictures details the alleged harassment of a black female employee fired from the company in 2011, it was reported Friday. The accuser says she was passed over for promotions, called misogynistic names, and subjected to an atmosphere of bullying and unwelcome advances.
BY GINGER ADAMS OTIS
It is a sordid tale of alleged harassment of a black female employee who claims to have experienced racism and been called Queen B which she saw as a euphemism for b---h by a top executive, Keith Le Goy.
The account was made in an email that was hacked out of the inbox of Sony Pictures chief counsel Leah Weil. The accuser, a longtime Sony employee, sent the missive in October 2011, a day after she was fired, Gawker reported Friday. The ex-employee, whose name was not released, was dismissed three days after she returned from a two-month workers compensation leave, according to the email.
In the missive, which was sent to other Sony execs besides Weil including Le Goy the unnamed woman said Human Resources told her she was getting the boot because she had complained about how she was treated and asked the company to provide in writing its policies regarding equal opportunity for workers.
The employee had worked for the company for seven years, and had been an administrative assistant to Le Goy, president of Sony international distribution, for five of her years on the job, she said.
Then, there's this....
A Female Sony Executive Reportedly Makes Nearly $1 Million Less Than Her Male Counterpart Each Year
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/female-sony-exec-makes-800000-less-than-her-male-counterpart-2014-12#ixzz3NO1pLqJl
and THIS....
Sony Pictures Hack Reveals Stark Gender Pay Gap
Meanwhile, somehow the Sony hack also accessed internal documents from consulting firm Deloitte, which were on a Sony computer. And guess what? Youre never gonna guess. A Deloitte salary spreadsheet from 2005 reveals that 85 of the top 100 earners there were men. In fairness, the document appears to have been put together to understand if there was racial or gender-based compensation discrimination within the company, Roose writes. I guess they got their answer. (Deloitte wouldnt confirm the data.)
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/12/05/sony_pictures_hack_reveals_gender_pay_gap_at_the_entertainment_company_and.html
Sony hack: Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams paid less than male costars
Sony hack highlights Hollywood pay gap: The "American Hustle" actresses were paid less than their male peers
http://www.salon.com/2014/12/12/sony_hack_jennifer_lawrence_amy_adams_paid_less_than_male_costars/
I dunno. That doesn't look entirely tenuous to me.
After a while, you start to think "Where there's smoke, there's fire."
Orsino
(37,428 posts)...but if the referenced cuts hit women even harder than they often do, the attempt to connect the hacking to particular women of interest still looks tenuous as hell. There's almost no there there, so far.
MADem
(135,425 posts)overrepresented on those lay-off lists.
CBS coverage here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/did-the-fbi-get-it-wrong-on-north-korea/
Orsino
(37,428 posts)That's still irrelevant to the attempt to connect the hacking to particular people. Still extremely tenuous.
MADem
(135,425 posts)likely/possible as the next, absent any definitive expressions/evidence from the FBI.
I guess I can't agree with the word "tenuous." I'd say one explanation is as plausible as the next--or maybe it was a smorgasbord approach; a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
Apparently the security firm who did the analysis has connected the hacking to at least one specific person, a woman named Lena (Lena2) who supposedly worked with LULZSEC on the hack and has posted complaints about gender bias at SONY on social media.
Orsino
(37,428 posts)I just don't see that it's been made yet.
Any investigation should of course include everyone known to have had access.
Cha
(297,799 posts)what she says in her emails now.
And, Bains.. what a rat's nest.. sure they laid off a lot of females but on the plus side they have binders.. full of them!
Have fun
MADem
(135,425 posts)And the ones they kept, they paid less than their male counterparts...
Maybe there's something to this assertion...
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)MindPilot
(12,693 posts)They were always oh-so-careful to produce documentation to prove they weren't laying off just the more senior, i. e. higher paid people. I believe there are some class-action suits already pending.
MADem
(135,425 posts)unblock
(52,386 posts)just to be all nit-picky and stuff.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)Kablooie
(18,641 posts)will he be obligated to apologize to that fat little jerk?
Boy what a propaganda coup that would be for North Korea.
And whoever was responsible for Obama making that mistake could be in big trouble.
MADem
(135,425 posts)doesn't mean that insider didn't have help from other sources.
This is still an evolving story--but I thought this take was interesting (if not The Last Word on the subject).
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)to apologize. Not to the ghosts of 2-3 million southeast Asians, not to the ghosts of 1 million Iraqis, not to the ghosts of countless South and Central Americans. WE. NEVER. APOLOGIZE.
As quoted in Ron Suskind's "Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush" New York Times, October 17, 2004
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community
nolabels
(13,133 posts)Rhetoric is just what it is. The rest of world don't listen what comes out as plans, policy or stated tact of the US Establishment but more overly they watch is done under the name of it.
GummyBearz
(2,931 posts)An attack on Obama's low level staffers is an attack on Obama himself (to so some people here). You may end up getting flooded by people accusing you of being an anti-obama troll for such a comment.
rpannier
(24,342 posts)another_liberal
(8,821 posts)The Sony hack seemed like such a great opportunity to get all military intervention and preemptive up against North Korea. What a darn shame for the MIC.
(sarcasm)
MADem
(135,425 posts)If that was the plan, they need to do way, WAY better!
another_liberal
(8,821 posts)And force compliance with its dictates through cyber-sabotage.
Of course, we would have to respond in a manner which would, "Teach them a lesson."
MADem
(135,425 posts)Their "network" being along the lines of a series of high school computer labs scattered hither and yon, it would seem.
They could have done this the easy way, not with any great hacking skills, but with a briefcase of cash. Get a spy to Hollywood, to find someone disgruntled at SONY, where the "offending" picture was being made, co-opt him or her, have them download the material onto thumb drives, and hand it off to the spy.
How to get the spy to Hollywood? Run 'em through Mexico. Pay a mule well and they're off to the races. Or maybe slip 'em off a freighter ... http://www.nknews.org/2014/08/north-korean-ship-near-mexico-impounded-without-proper-insurance/
The FBI still thinks NK is in the mix, and as some reports have suggested, they may have information that has not been made public. It could actually be a simple yet perfect storm of geopolitics, art (such as it is), culture, and internal business operations that created this imbroglio.
Time should, as it often does, reveal all...
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)KoKo
(84,711 posts)apparently Sony has released the movie online and made 14 Million as of yesterday. Bloomberg Business was reporting that it was a "test" to see if Sony could release movies online doing deals with Amazon & Netflix. They way they were talking it seems Sony benefits. One did ask a question about why they didn't just take the insurance money which would be 80 mil...instead of releasing online where they wouldn't make as much. The answer from another one of the Wall Streeters was that if they could make this much in a few days maybe it would work out.
Rather odd all of that. If they'd get the insurance money because NoKorea hacked them why not take it and run since the movie wasn't supposted to be that great in the first place. Unless they really couldn't prove that the hack was real or were worried that insurance company would investigate further and Sony didn't want to take a chance that it wasn't NoKorea.
Anyway...Bloomberg Media analysts thought it was a good test for Sony to get around doing contracts with the major theater companies and just go online with some of their productions.
It's always interesting to watch "The Business" angle of things these days. Since Wall Street MIC/Media Complex rules.
MADem
(135,425 posts)...Researchers from the cyber intelligence company Norse have said their own investigation into the data on the Sony attack doesnt point to North Korea at all and instead indicates some combination of a disgruntled employee and hackers for piracy groups is at fault.
The FBI says it is standing by its conclusions, but the security community says theyve been open and receptive to help from the private sector throughout the Sony investigation....
....The FBI has concluded the Government of North Korea is responsible for the theft and destruction of data on the network of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Attribution to North Korea is based on intelligence from the FBI, the U.S. intelligence community, DHS, foreign partners and the private sector, a spokeswoman said in a statement. There is no credible information to indicate that any other individual is responsible for this cyber incident. ....But the doubters leave open the possibility that the government has other intelligence supporting the idea that its North Korea that they dont have access to, and a U.S. official told POLITICO it is likely the U.S. has access to information it is choosing to not release....
More at above link. It's still about as clear as mud!
nichomachus
(12,754 posts)countryjake
(8,554 posts)Thanks for all these links, MADem. Saved for later reading, but verrryyy interesting.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)They're still insisting that NK had a hand in.
It could be that a disgruntled employee found herself in the company of an Asian gentleman of uncertain ethnicity who offered to help her take them down a peg. Maybe he paid her. Or maybe she did it for the "Get back at you for firing ME" thing. So many possibilities!
KoKo
(84,711 posts)for giving misleading information might be their reason for insistence. They won't look good if they jumped the gun causing our President to come out and defend Sony and imply that we were going to act on whatNoKorea did in some fashion at some time in retaliation.
Thanks for the updates on this.
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)I wonder if the U.S. was responsible for taking down the N. Korean internet and cell phones? At least now he can stop promoting an awful movie.
When the FBI made the announcement so soon after the initial hack was unveiled, everyone in the [cyber] intelligence community kind of raised their eyebrows at it, because its really hard to pin this on anyone within days of the attack, Kurt Stammberger said in an interview as his company briefed FBI investigators Monday afternoon.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/fbi-briefed-on-alternate-sony-hack-theory-113866.html
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Who knows?, Corps or Countries could pay some country like NK for 'hacked information' in return for any type of import products.
MADem
(135,425 posts)stage; perhaps not with cooperation, but who knows?
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)gold miners all 'disappeared' years ago
and maybe the computers in NK are essentially "slave" machines that are used to reroute Internet traffic and creating cover for actual hacker locations. You're right, there are so many possibilities. And the "official line" has eroding credibility these days.
MADem
(135,425 posts)that's not been made public.
One item doesn't obviate the other, in any event. Both circumstances could be true.
Where people are falling down is that they're all assuming this was a "hack"--because that's what everybody does, they "hack." They go in and out through the net.
What may have happened here is the intervention of some HUMINT--someone, perhaps a disgruntled employee, downloaded information onto a thumb drive, say, and handed that thumb drive off to a PERSON who hand delivered it elsewhere for dissemination. Very old school, but it leaves far less of a footprint, doesn't it?
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)I think at this point, it is more than one POV, as most in the security business don't think NK were responsible. I'm sure that when it is figured out, and if NK wasn't responsible, Obama will offer a sincere apology.
MADem
(135,425 posts)FBI's position is that there's information that the security investigators don't have.
I'm speculating, as I said elsewhere in the thread, but if there was a NK HUMINT asset in the mix, the security investigators would not "see" that and thus they wouldn't pick up on that end of things.
cascadiance
(19,537 posts)Note back in 2008, when we were blaming North korea for the "super dollar" counterfeits that lead to us changing our currency substantially to avoid such counterfeits. McClatchey then reported then that it was more likely that the CIA was producing such counterfeits to help fund their operations without scrutiny. If this newer hack story is also found to be true, then perhaps this and the older operation should have newer investigations to see whether there is a clandestine "blame korea" infrastructure for things that are being "kept quiet" that our government and other linked PTB entities may be engaged in.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2762230
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)I doubt they want the real story to come out. No, I don't know who and I don't have a real theory who it was or the motivation.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)This man would never allow the American people to be misled:
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)That's why I find it so funny to hear immediate accusations of "See? Those dumb, ignorant businessmen don't know what the hell to do about security!"
There is no fool-proof security on the Internet. There never will be.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]
Rex
(65,616 posts)Egg on the face of the FBI, no doubt the POTUS will take the blame but really it is the FBI that should be apologizing if this turns out to be true NOT the POTUS.
I guess hacked by NK sounds much better than hacked by women laid off unfairly by Sony (thanks to Mittens and his binders and binders full of women employees). One is a PR win the other a PR nightmare imo.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Lots of snark in that thread from those who get their info from the idiot box.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)a conspiracy theory.
Which it is.
This is different.
daredtowork
(3,732 posts)As I wrote in the other thread -
It's a good thing Obama maintained "plausible deniability" on his "proportional response".
The manipulation of the American people - especially of the older generation who still maintained Cold War 'tudes and who didn't understand that the traditional national "boxes" are the least of our worries when it comes to cyber warfare - really annoyed the heck out of me.
daredtowork
(3,732 posts)In this article here: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30632711
But they may be saying that for fame of to troll/throw noise.