Despite reports that the Sony hacking may have been the handiwork of Russia, cybersecurity expert Steven J.J. Weisman tells
Newsmax TV that he believes North Korea was behind the attack.
Some experts in the last few days have said the linguistics, or language, used by the hackers appears to
comport with Russian language, Weisman explained Monday on "America's Forum."
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The federal government has not released much of the information it has, according to Weisman, because it doesn't want to disclose how it was determined that North Korea was the culprit.
Weisman isn’t convinced the motive for the attack was the movie "The Interview," which parodies North Korean leader Kin Jong Un as a buffoon targeted for assassination.
"Initially when the hacking occurred, that was not mentioned, it was only when the media picked up on that," he said. "The bigger question is, whoever did this is going to make corporations around the world vulnerable to ransom hacking. In this case, that was initially what happened. There was a request for money, but Sony didn't pay it."
The takeaway from the attack should be the threat of corporate espionage, not necessarily to steal proprietary secrets but to "threaten the being of corporations," Weisman warned.
"The statistics show that last year about 82 percent of American companies were hacked, so they are very vulnerable," he said. "Sony was a company that was particularly vulnerable. Its security and intelligence, well, there was no intelligence in their security."
They had file folders labeled passwords that were unencrypted, according to Weisman. They didn't use sufficient passwords, they didn't isolate certain information from the Internet, and these are all steps that have to be taken by corporations, he said.
Strong passwords combining symbols, numbers and letters in both upper and lower case make it more difficult for hackers to steal someone’s identity, he said. Passwords should be changed every six months.
"You can't have the First Amendment dependent upon a two-bit dictator in North Korea," he said.
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