Tom Bossert, a White House staffer for the Trump administration, has claimed that the DPRK, better known as North Korea, was behind the WannaCry cyberattack, and “will be held accountable.” In the accusatory post in the Wall Street Journal, he claimed that “after careful investigation, the U.S. [yesterday] publicly attributed the massive “WannaCry” cyberattack to North Korea."
The White House Homeland Security adviser claimed that the accusations were “based on evidence”, however, he failed to name a particular organisation or person affiliated with the North Korean government for the attack. Bossert said that the U.S. was not the only party to put the blame for WannaCry on North Korea. In the op-ed he wrote:
“Other governments and private companies agree. The United Kingdom attributes the attack to North Korea, and Microsoft traced the attack to cyber affiliates of the North Korean government.”
In July, in the months after the WannaCry attack, Cyence, a risk-modelling firm estimated that there was a cumulative loss of $8 billion. In total, 300,000 computers in 150 countries were affected, with a notable case being the NHS which was still running old software after it ignored calls for action to upgrade its computers.
Aside from discussing North Korea’s involvement with WannaCry, he also mentioned Kaspersky"s software which has been in the news as of late due to the company’s alleged involvement, knowingly or not, in Russia’s alleged attempts to meddle in the U.S. Presidential elections.
Pertaining to Kaspersky, Bossert said:
“The Trump administration ordered the removal of all Kaspersky software from government systems. A company that could bring data back to Russia represents an unacceptable risk on federal networks.”
Allegations that North Korea are behind the WannaCry attack come at a time that Washington has been pressuring the country to stop its development of a nuclear weapon that would be capable of hitting anywhere in mainland America.