North Korea’s massive cyberattack on Sony Pictures late last year was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the damage foreign hackers can do in the U.S., House lawmakers warned Tuesday.
In Congress’s first public probing of the November hack, members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee called the cyberattack a sign of North Korea’s maturing hacking powers.
{mosads}On top of its nuclear stockpiles and repressive treatment of its own people, the hermit nation’s cyber powers are just one more reason to get tough with Pyongyang, lawmakers said.
“Despite limited Internet capability in North Korea, the fact is that there is an elite cyber warfare unit that defectors have told us about,” panel Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) said.
The Sony hack “was a state-sanctioned attack that has many Americans asking: If that is what North Korea can do to a movie company, how vulnerable is our critical infrastructure?” he added.
“How vulnerable is our energy grid? What if electricity was cut off? That obviously would be a dark chapter.”
According to the Obama administration, North Korean officials were behind the November attack on Sony, which resulted in the public release of business plans and embarrassing conversations, including top executives’ racial jokes about President Obama. The attack appeared to be an act of retribution for Sony’s production of “The Interview,” a comedy movie about a fictional plot to assassinate leader Kim Jong Un.
While the North Korean regime has denied involvement and many outside cyber experts have been skeptical of the U.S.’s claim, American officials have repeatedly expressed certainty that Pyongyang is to blame.
“It seems to me that’s an act of terror,” said Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas).
North Korea has an elite team of hackers in its secretive Bureau 121, which has been used to monitor foreign networks and launch cyberattacks abroad.
While the Sony hack may have been the first time the United States saw the strength of North Korea’s hacking team, it has flexed its muscles before.
In March 2013, computers at major South Korean banks and broadcasters were taken offline, paralyzing the nation for days and preventing many people from accessing money through their ATMs. That attack could be a preview of things to come in the U.S., lawmakers worried.
“That’s a real warning in terms of both what the North’s capability is and the vulnerability of not just the South Korean economy, but, frankly, our own as well,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.).
Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.) warned that the recent attacks “are indicative of future intent, intent backed by considerable capabilities.”
Tuesday’s session — which took place before the committee had been formally convened — occurred mere hours before President Obama warned about “foreign governments, criminals and hackers” who “probe America’s computer networks every single day,” and a day after hackers aligned with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) took control of the Twitter and YouTube accounts run by U.S. Central Command.
“This is severely disturbing to me,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. “We don’t know how to respond to these things.”
The U.S.’s options for fighting back against Pyongyang certainly do appear limited.
North Korea is already one of the most isolated countries in the world, and it’s unclear how much damage the U.S. could do by trying to further cut outside sources of funding.
Still, the Obama administration has announced new sanctions against the nation after the Sony hack, and lawmakers pledged to take whatever action they could to further build walls around North Korea.
“We need to step up and target those financial institutions in Asia and beyond that are supporting the brutal and dangerous North Korean regime,” Royce said.
Last year, the House passed legislation to clamp down on North Korea by labeling it a nation of primary money laundering concern, similar to Iran. The bill failed to move in the Senate, but Royce on Tuesday pledged to take it up again this year.
Other lawmakers called for increasing international cooperation on cyber issues, so that nations around the globe are united in their response whenever hackers strike.
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) proposed a more novel approach.
In addition to increasing spending for U.S. broadcasts into North Korea, he called for the U.S. to deliver a “double dose of free speech” by beaming in satellite TV, so that North Koreans can watch “The Interview,” including the scene in which a missile blows up the North Korean leader’s helicopter as he rides in it.
“I hope that we use the director’s cut,” Sherman said, “before they tone down the climactic scene.”