President Obama announced last month that North Korea would face a “proportional response” for its alleged cyberattack against Sony Pictures, and he has certainly delivered on that promise. His administration has imposed more economic sanctions against the nation that, while more symbolic than anything, represent the first official retaliatory action against North Korea for its alleged involvement in the hack.
The Obama administration doubled down on Friday on its allegation that North Korea’s leadership was behind the hacking of Sony Pictures, announcing new, if largely symbolic, economic sanctions against 10 senior North Korean officials and the intelligence agency it said was the source of “many of North Korea’s major cyberoperations.” The actions were based on an executive order President Obama signed on vacation in Hawaii, as part of what he had promised would be a “proportional response” against the country. But in briefings for reporters, officials said they could not establish that any of the 10 officials had been directly involved in the destruction of much of the studio’s computing infrastructure.