Hacker Mitigation and Culture in the International Systems Research Paper

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Hacker Culture and Mitigation in the International Systems

The explosion of the internet technology in the contemporary business and IT environments has assisted more than 300 million computer users to be connected through a maze of internet networks. Moreover, the network connectivity has facilitated the speed of communication among businesses and individuals. (Hampton, 2012). Despite the benefits associated with the internet and network technologies, the new technologies have opened the chance for hackers to attack the information systems of business organizations and collect sensitive information worth millions of dollars. Each year, businesses have been a victim of cyber-attacks in the United States. As an increasing number of people and businesses own internet-enabled devices, more businesses have become a victim of cyber-attacks, which has become a critical concern in the business and governmental environments. (Hacker news, n.d.).

The objective of this paper is to analyze the cyber incidents of the Sony Corporation and the psychological factors that motivate the crime.

a. Descriptive labels applied to the Incident

Sony Corporation is a multinational conglomerate specialized in the professional and consumer electronics, entertainments, and gaming. Sony is one of the leading companies in the electronic products and 116th company in the Fortune global list. This paper uses the cyber-attack of the Sony Corporation to illustrate the psychological motivation behind the cyber-attacks. The attack of Sony Corporation occurred on November 24, 2014, and was a high-profile cyber incident where the hackers stole personal details of customers that include the date of birth, names, and their home address. The attacker also stole millions of credit card details forcing the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of the company to resign. The success of the Sony attacks has revealed the effectiveness of psychological cyber warfare because the attackers force the Sony Corporation to pull out the movie, a comedy about the assassination of the North Korean president, from the markets costing the company millions of dollars, and consequently damage the Sony's reputations. (FBI, 2014)

Sony attacks escalated from the data theft to the public blackmail because the assailants embarrassed the company by divulging the top executive confidential emails to the public. The Sony attack was more than the ordinary cyber-attacks; the attacks were categorized between cyber terrorism and cyber warfare since the terrorists can be the nation states and use the cyber-attacks to inflict damages on other countries infrastructures. (Atkinson, 2015). The psychological motivation behind the Sony attack is to pull the United States into the cyber warfare, and the Sony incidents are categorized as politically motivated cyber-attacks to inflict a psychological distress on other nations. (Atkinson, 2015).

b. Descriptive Information about the threat Actors

A press release by the FBI (2014) revealed that the North Korea was the sponsor of the attack showing that the attack was politically motivated. The Sony Pictures confirmed the attack and described how the perpetrators destroyed the company information systems and stole a large quantity of commercial and personal data. The attackers also rendered thousands of the Sony Pictures computer systems inoperable, and the issue forced the company to escalate their entire computer network systems offline consequently disrupt the Sony business operations. (FBI, 2014)

After the incidents, the Sony Picture seek for the FBI assistance, and the outcome of the FBI investigation revealed that North Korean government was responsible for the action. The motivation of the North Korean government was to inflict as much as possible psychological damage on the U.S. government. Typically, the North Korea government realized that they cannot win a military combat with the United States, thus, they decided to wage the war in proxy. (FBI, 2014).

People who go after the Information

This section discusses how the penetrators have been identified. The information they are after, how they get the information and method to identify the hackers. The penetrators of the Sony Pictures were sponsored by North Korea, although, they identify themselves as "Guidance of Peace," nevertheless, the North Korean government has sponsored them. The North Korea motivation is to weaken the economic superiority of the United States because Sony incidents sent a wave of terror to the entire corporate America. (Fotinger, & Ziegler, 2004). The FBI concluded that the intrusion consisted of deployment of the destructive malware to steal confidential and personal communication. (FBI, 2014).

The technical analysis conducted by the FBI has linked the Sony attacks to North Korea based on the similarities between encryption algorithms, line of codes, compromised methods and data deletion methods that the North Korea government used in the past. Other indices that linked the attack to the North Korea is that the agencies discovered that the North Korean IP addresses were coded into the malware used for the attack.

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Moreover, the malware tools used for the Sony attack were similar to the tools used to attack the South Korean banks as well as other media outlets in South Korea. (FBI, 2014).

The incidents also show that no American company is immune from the cyber-attack in the face of the state-sponsored cyber warfare against the United States. Since 1989, Sony Pictures is the most dominant electronic company in the world. The company dominates the film production in the Hollywood. When the attackers penetrated the Sony's information systems, they stole films not yet released to the public and sent the films to the pirate community. The scenario made the company to lose over $300 Million dollars invested in the films. The United States needs to mobilize the immense resources to combat the contemporary electronic crimes because the issues of Sony incidents reveal that the attackers can steal precious corporate secrets and bring companies to their knees in a matter of weeks. The irony of the cyber incidents in the American corporate community is that many companies have been hacked for years without realizing that they have been hacked. Faced with the way cyber-attacks are spreading like bush fire in the U.S. corporate community, the U.S. government needs to use decisive cyber military tactics to reduce the incidences. (Piazza, & Bering, 2009).

This paper labels the attackers of the Sony Picture as the state-sponsored Black Hat. Analysis of the incidents reveals that the attackers were not after the economic gains; rather their main motivation was to use the power of coercion to make the target organization incurring loss through the blackmail and intimidation. Moreover, the North Korea attacked the Sony Picture for the ideological reasons. The attackers who go after a company for the ideological reason are not normally after the financial gains rather their intention is to make people recognize their ideology. For several decades, the international community has isolated the North Korea, thus, the only strategy to make the country come into a limelight is to use an act of terror. (Piazza, & Bering, 2009).

Methods to discourage Possible Threat Actors

It is paramount that the state actors are attacking the U.S. companies to weaken the U.S. economy. Gone are the days when countries use the military weapons to attack one another. In the contemporary IT environment, increasing number of countries are taking the advantages of an advance in the information technology to inflict cyber warfare against the United States. Faced with the recent cyber threats, it is paramount that the U.S. government should not leave the security of the IT infrastructures entirely on the hand of the corporate communities. The U.S. government should realize that it is now their top priority to defend the U.S. territorial integrity against the cyber warfare. Currently, there is a shortage of the IT security experts in the United States, and the U.S. agencies are currently facing the shortage of IT and cyber security experts who can man the security of the U.S. IT infrastructures. In the United States, more than 209,000 IT security jobs remain unfilled, and the shortage is likely to grow in the next 5 years. The ability of the U.S. government, private companies and academia to develop the qualified IT experts is paramount to the security of the U.S. IT infrastructures. The best strategy to protect the companies IT infrastructures is to train as much as possible the IT security experts to monitor and secure the organizational infrastructures. (Hampton, 2012)

A potential security response is to offer as many scholarships as possible to school leavers intending to study IT and computer security in the U.S. colleges. Moreover, the U.S. government should encourage many colleges and universities to offer Cyber and IT security courses at undergraduate and Master's levels to boost the number of the security experts in the United States. In the contemporary IT environment, increasing number of corporate organizations rely on IT infrastructures to do business, while the IT engineers are very critical for the system designs, nevertheless, the IT security experts are still critical for the protection of the organizational infrastructures. Thus, the U.S. government should set up and sponsors a number of colleges and universities that will specialize in the IT and computer security. The strategy will boost the number of corporate IT security experts in the United States,….....

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