US asked for China’s help on North Korea cyberattacks, says official
Washington has asked Beijing to help block cyberattacks from North Korea as President Obama considers the response to the hack of Sony Pictures, a US official said on Saturday.
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 21 December, 2014, 2:47pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 21 December, 2014, 2:47pm
Agence France-Presse in Washington
An exterior view of Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California. Photo: AP
The United States has asked China to help block cyberattacks from North Korea as it weighs a response to the crippling hack of Sony Pictures, a US official said on Saturday.
“We have discussed this issue with the Chinese to share information, express our concerns about this attack and to ask for their cooperation,” a senior US administration official told reporters.
The US blames the isolated state for the hacking that prompted the cancellation of the Christmas Day release of The Interview,” a madcap film about a CIA plot to kill leader Kim Jong-un that infuriated the North.
North Korea called on Saturday for a joint investigation with the US into the crippling attack on Sony, denouncing Washington’s “slandering” after President Barack Obama warned Pyongyang of retaliation.
China is North Korea’s closet ally, and has traditionally had long-standing influence with the leaders of the hermit state.
The US administration official said that in “our cybersecurity discussions, both China and the United States have expressed the view that conducting destructive attacks in cyberspace is outside the norms of appropriate cyber behaviour.”
The US and China last year set up a special panel to discuss cybersecurity.
But earlier this year, in an unprecedented move Washington charged five members of a shadowy Chinese military unit with hacking US companies to winkle out their trade secrets.
President Obama answers a question about the cyberattack on Sony Pictures at the White House in Washington on Saturday. Photo: Reuters
In the first-ever prosecution of state actors over cyberespionage, a federal US grand jury indicted the five on charges of breaking into US computers to benefit Chinese state-owned companies, leading to job losses in the United States in steel, solar and other industries. The five remain at large however.
It is unclear how the United States will choose to retaliate against North Korea.
Addressing reporters after the FBI said Pyongyang was to blame, Obama said Washington would never bow to “some dictator.”
“We can confirm that North Korea engaged in this attack,” Obama said.
“We will respond. We will respond proportionately and we’ll respond in a place and time and manner that we choose.”
