US officials no longer believes North Korea was behind the hacking of Sony"s systems, with the officials admitting that the country lacks the capability to conduct the sophisticated attack by itself.
The admission comes after US officials, the FBI and even US President Barack Obama earlier pointed to North Korea as the sole perpetrator of the hacking, at the time Obama said: "We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here."
The FBI earlier said an analysis of the malicious software and the IP addresses used in the attack was similar to a previous cyber attack by North Korea in 2013, however, as pointed out by security experts, the evidence could have been faked by a hacker who wanted to misdirect attention to North Korea.
US officials said the attack was too sophisticated to come from North Korea, but investigators are now looking at the possibility the country "contracted out" the cyber work.
Despite the admission by US officials, the FBI has stood by its previous claims, saying "there is no credible information to indicate that any other individual is responsible for this cyber incident."
The attack on Sony Pictures has left the company crippled, not only did the hackers steal a huge amount of embarrassing, secretive, and highly personal data, but also wiped hard drives and brought down its internal network, plus Sony is unlikely to make any money from the movie, The Interview.
Source: Reuters