President Obama Claims Sony Hack Is Not “An Act Of War”

President Obama has added his voice to the Sony Pictures hack, after U.S. officials confirmed North Korea’s involvement in the attack. Obama denied the North Korean hack was “an act of war” against the U.S., instead labelling it an act of “cyber vandalism” against Sony Pictures.

Obama also alluded to some of the punishments for North Korea’s involvement in the Sony Pictures hack, including being put back on the state-terrorism list. Countries on the U.S. state-terrorism list receive all sanctions a terrorist nation would, and the U.S. will not work with the government until the terrorist threat has been removed. Even though this would not hurt North Korea’s economy, since the communist state works primarily with China, it is still bad for the global view of North Korea, which is already poor.

China has started investigating the potential hackers of Sony Pictures, and have already denounced the idea North Korea is behind the attack. Other security experts also have doubts North Korea is behind the attack. The U.S. has not disclosed the evidence connecting North Korea to the #GOP group, meaning experts cannot examine the information.

The main reasons North Korea would be considered is the attack code used is similar to an attack (sent by North Korea) to South Korea in 2013. However, attack code is bought and sold on the internet market quite frequently.

North Korea has never enacted an attack of this scale, only Iran, China and Russia have the capabilities. The #GOP hacking group, which has been leaking the information. also does not fit the state-sponsored group description, considering it is releasing information on the internet for free.

There are still lots of questions surrounding the Sony Pictures hack, and it might be a while before anyone has tangible answers.