North Korea Fights Back?
North Korea has been accused by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of being the mastermind behind the devastating attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment in December 2014.
However, it is far from certain that this was a state sponsored attack by a foreign government; some evidence points to a group of hactivists behind the attack. If North Korea is being falsely accused, as they have claimed, of being behind the attack they may now be fighting back to even the score.
The web site of the state-run North Korean news agency, which many users may have visited in order to get the Korean's side of the story, contains the file FlashPlayer10.zip served up by JavaScript code.
Not all users who visit the news agency web site are prompted to download this file: the JavaScript code looks first at the user's operating system, language preference, web browser version, and location before determining if the user should be prompted to download the file. This file contains two executable files--"Install Flash Player 10 Activex.exe" and "Install Flash Player 10 Plugin.exe"--that pretend to be part of the Adobe Flash player installation process but instead contain malware.
These files appear to steal passwords from browsers and perhaps perform other malicious actions. The time stamp on these files is actually prior to the Sony attack, but since time stamps can be easily manipulated it's not clear how long these files have been on the North Korean site.
Users who may have visited this site were urged to scan their computers for malware. In addition, Adobe itself later issued a fix for a critical vulnerability in its Flash software for both Windows and Mac OS editions.
Stay secure!
Homework Think Critically North Korea Fights Back:
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Submit an essay based on real-world scenario. The essay should be no more than 1-2 double spaced pages, size 12 font. It should have an introduction, a body and a conclusion. The essay could address any of the following questions:
1) Do you think North Korea was acting in what they thought was their best interest?
2) From a security stand point, what are people supposed to do?
3) How should the US government react to the situation?
4) What would be a good foreign policy when dealing with Cyber incidents like this?
5) How are computers supposed to be secure when hackers are coming up with new ways to attack computers every day?
6) What do you think the affect of actions like this are when it comes to computer security?
7) If there is another area you would like to address, feel free, but it should be relevant to the topic.
Requirements: I understand that students may not be the strongest writers, but you only get better with practice. I am not going to be the grammar police when it comes to this assignment but I would like you to write in complete sentences and synthesize your ideas.
I normally grade these assignments on whether or not you complete them as long as it is well written and follows a STRICT no plagiarism policy. You should use APA citation styles and all sources should be cited. If you are not familiar with APA, please google it. You should use at least 2 resources for the paper.