WannaCry Attack Source Publicly Named As North Korea

The WannaCry ransomware attack earlier this year crippled almost a third of the United Kingdom’s National Health Care trusts. It even impacted almost 300 local doctor’s offices earlier this year in May. The country has been conducting an investigation into the cyberattack and it has now publicly named the WannaCry attack source as North Korea. The attack was publicly attributed to North Korea by the British Security Minister Ben Wallace in a BBC radio interview.

“North Korea was the state that we believe was involved in this worldwide attack on our systems,” Wallace said in the interview, after mentioning that the country believes quite strongly that a foreign state was behind the attack.

Wallace declined to go into the detailed intelligence but said that “we can be as sure as possible” about North Korea’s role in the cyberattack. He also added that it’s widely believed in the community and across several countries that “North Korea had taken this role.”

Wallace’s statement echoes a similar statement made by Microsoft President Brad Smith earlier this month. “I think at this point that all observers in the know have concluded that WannaCry was caused by North Korea using cyber tools or weapons that were stolen from the National Security Agency in the United States,” he said.

This isn’t the first time that North Korea has been accused of being behind a cyberattack. The country’s said back in May that it was “ridiculous” to link Pyongyang with the WannaCry ransomware attack.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Web
Tags: cyberattacks, WannaCry