Sony hack: US mulls putting N Korea back on terror list

President Obama: "I don't think it was an act of war, I think it was an act of cyber-vandalism"

President Barack Obama has said the US is considering putting North Korea back on its list of terrorism sponsors after the hacking of Sony Pictures.

A decision would be taken after a review, he said, calling the attack an act of cyber-vandalism, not of war.
North Korea denies the attack over The Interview, which depicts the fictional killing of its leader Kim Jong-Un.
Sony cancelled the Christmas Day release after threats to cinemas. It is considering "a different platform".

Costly
 
 In a CNN interview, President Obama described the hacking as a "very costly, very expensive" example of cyber-vandalism.
He said US officials would examine all the evidence to determine whether North Korea should be put back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
"I'll wait to review what the finding are," Mr Obama said, adding that he did not think the attack "was an act of war".

North Korea had been on the US list for two decades until the White House removed it in 2008, after Pyongyang agreed to full verification of its nuclear sites.
On Saturday, the US also asked China to curb North Korea's cyber-attacks.
So far there has been no response from Beijing - North Korea's main ally. North Korea's communications run through China.
The FBI said on Friday that North Korea had carried out last month's cyber-attack, in which script details and private emails were leaked.
The US defended its findings on Saturday, with US National Security spokesman Mark Stroh saying: "We are confident the North Korean government is responsible for this destructive attack."
"If the North Korean government wants to help, they can admit their culpability and compensate Sony for the damages this attack caused," he said.

The cyber-attack has left Sony Pictures reeling from a massive leak of information

 

 

 SOURCE] bbc