On Friday, US President Barack Obama placed
new sanctions on North Korea as a "first measure" of retaliation against the country's cyber-attacks on Sony Pictures through an
executive order that targets individuals and companies or other entities affiliated with the North Korean government. Obama referred to the North Korean government as "destructive and coercive," and painted the incident as an attack on both a US company and at attack on the right of free expression. The movie that North Korea objected to,
The Interview, has since been released and sailed to the top of the iTunes movie charts.
While
third-party investigations have suggested that others -- such as disgruntled ex-employees and juvenile hacker groups -- may have assisted North Korea in its attack, the US government and Federal Bureau of Investigation are unwavering in placing the blame for the attack squarely on North Korea. After
first capitulating to the Guardians of Peace (GOP) cyber-terrorists and getting
significant backlash from both
Obama and the public, the studio finally released the film in theaters and through digital services on its original scheduled release date, December 25.
After its first week, Sony reported that the film has made about $15 million, with roughly $10 million coming from rentals and $5 million in sales of the film. While for most films this would be seen as an enormous flop, and indeed represents only about a quarter of the film's initial budget, many have gone to see the film not out of genuine interest but as an
act of defiance over what is perceived as an attack on their right to see the film.
The movie itself has generally been reviewed as a somewhat boorish but moderately amusing comedy that revolves around a journalist and his producer that land a conversation with North Korea's Supreme Leader, and are then approached by the CIA with a request to use their access to help assassinate him. While some of North Korea's offense is understandable -- as the portrayal of Kim Jong-Un is played for comedy, and his death is the goal of the plot -- the country chose to retaliate with a full-on cyber-attack of the studio's
admittedly-vulnerable computer systems that included publishing sensitive emails, unreleased films and personal addresses of previous actors and other personnel, among other items.
"We take seriously North Korea's attack, that aimed to create destructive financial effects on a US company and to threaten artists and other individuals with the goal of restricting their right to free expression," the White House said in its release on the sanctions which also called the attacks "provocative, destabilizing, and repressive." The President had previously said that the US would counter the attack with a "proportional" response, but said that the current sanctions were only a "first measure," implying that more punishment would be doled out to the country.
Hacker groups not directly affiliated with the US government
launched their own response last week, knocking the entire country's connection to the wider Internet offline for a few days. Due to the fact that North Korea -- already a highly-isolated country -- has only 1,024 broadband connections to the worldwide network for the entire population, the DDoS attack that brought down the country's ability to get online was a trivial matter, say hacktivists, and could easily be re-mounted.
Not yet addressed in the government's response to the attack were the more ominous aspects of the siege on Sony, including threats of violence at movie theaters that dared to show
The Interview and threats to employees and their families -- though there is some question over whether all the communications ascribed to the GOP actually came from the group, which is believed to be operating from and with the support of the North Korean government. There have been no incidents of violence at any cinemas that did show the film thus far, though most have boosted security in response to the threats.