China to play an important role in the Sony-North Korean Cyber Attacks

The hackers have admitted to taking offence by the Sony pictures’ new movie The Interview. China and US have been in a tense state when US made allegations on Chinese military of cyber attacks earlier this year.

Since the declaration of North Korea disapproval of the Sony Pictures upcoming comedy The Interview starring James Franco and Seth Rogen, a lot has happened. The most important being a group of hackers hacking a large amount of data.

They threatened to release it on Christmas which coincidentally happened to be the release date of the movie. It became obvious what the hackers wanted and The Interview has been closed down even before its release. 

The attempt was on the Sony Pictures but the NSA, CIA and White House have definitely taken notice of the situation as an attack on the cyber security of the country. President Obama has said to take the strictest action against the incident. The first step towards preventing such future attacks, China has to be taken into confidence.

It is the Chinese mainframes that are generally used by the North Koreans. The hackers trace addresses went from Bolivia to Cameroon to China. The Chinese mainframes have been said to be involved in the hacking of military intel from US military databases.

The two countries shared some bitter responses upon the allegations. US response team highlighted that if an attack is instigated by North Korea again, then they will face retaliation. The US will however target their nuclear facilities which will be harder to access than Iranian facilities but all the same.

This was highlighted because all North Korean cyber operations are handled by Chinese mainframes and if a counterattack was planned by the US; the Chinese will be witnessing American reconnaissance on their boards.

The Chinese responded by the words of foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying who recently met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that the Chinese condemn all forms of cyber attacks and cyber terrorism. They will do everything to prevent any such future incidents happening.

They said however, that their allegations against North Korea are not proven and it would be wrong to blame North Korea. North Korea has also stated that it has had nothing to do with the cyber attacks on Sony and China has fully backed North Korea’s claim.

Sources: Reuters , NYTimes