State-sponsored or not, Sony Pictures malware “bomb” used slapdash code

[steve2470]

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/12/state-sponsored-or-not-sony-pictures-malware-bomb-used-slapdash-code/

According to multiple reports, unnamed government officials have said that the cyber attack on Sony Pictures was linked to the North Korean government. The Wall Street Journal reports that investigators suspect the attack was carried out by Unit 121 of North Korea’s General Bureau of Reconnaissance, the country’s most elite hacking unit.

But if the elite cyber-warriors of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea were behind the malware that erased data from hard drives at Sony Pictures Entertainment, they must have been in a real hurry to ship it.

Analysis by researchers at Cisco of a malware sample matching the MD5 hash signature of the “Destover” malware that was used in the attack on Sony Pictures revealed that the code was full of bugs and anything but sophisticated. It was the software equivalent of a crude pipe bomb.

Compared to other state-sponsored malware that researchers have analyzed, “It's a night and day difference in quality,” said Craig Williams, senior technical leader for Cisco’s Talos Security Intelligence and Research Group, in an interview with Ars. “The code is simplistic, not very complex, and not very obfuscated.”

[Electric Monk]

1. I keep thinking of this photo, and wondering exactly what is "under the hood", so to speak

[Cooley Hurd]

3. Pong...

[gvstn]

5. C'mon, when was that taken?

They now have Win8 Metro GUI running on XP. But the peons don't get trackball mice.

[img][/img]

[randome]

2. Maybe the more sophisticated the technology, the easier it becomes for 'old style' software...

...to slip through the cracks. It's like building a continent-wide missile defense system while neglecting to secure your ports.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]No squirrels were harmed in the making of this post. Yet.[/center][/font][hr]

[Bosonic]

4. Simple fact is: it worked

[MannyGoldstein]

6. Brilliant Comrade humilates Western Sony hyenas with superior

coding skills. In heiroglyphic macro assembler of Huge Leader's own creation!

All performed in the service of true Korean peoples in just one day after completing Streetlight on Flatus, thanks to healthy methamphetamine kimchi.

Brilliant Comrade shocks the world! Tom Tom Club celebrates coming end of Walkman hegemony!