North Korea’s Sony Cyber Attack: North Korea 1 … Sony 0 … Free Speech 0 … U.S. 0

With the dual announcements that Sony is canceling ‘The Interview’ and the U.S. believes North Korea is behind the cyber attack on Sony that led to the movie’s cancellation, we all just got to witness a textbook case of successful cyber and psychological operations. Ironically, the success came from a country commonly viewed as a technology backwater – North Korea.

Since information on the movie first started to appear, the North has made it very clear that it objected to the movie, especially the purported assassination of its leader. As production finished and the release date neared, with no sign of the movie being cancelled, the North apparently decided to try options aside from public objections.

Military, diplomatic, and economic options likely offered limited ability to get the movie canceled, especially when compared to cyber options – a skillset the North has been honing for years. Step one would be to get inside Sony’s systems, step two would be to steal or destroy the movie. Failing that, psychological operations (what the U.S. military calls ‘information operations’) came into play. By releasing the most salacious information gained during the attack, the hackers were able to gain massive amounts of media coverage.

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