North Korea Slams UK Claims It’s To Blame For WannaCry

Roland Moore-Colyer,
An illustration representing the North Korean flag and the shape of its borders

The nation dismisses Britain’s security minister’s claims as “groundless speculation”

North Korea has slammed the UK’s security minister’s claims that it is the blame for the WannaCry ransomware attack that spread across the world this year.

“North Korea was the state that we believe was involved in this worldwide attack on our systems,” minister Ben Wallace told BBC Radio earlier this week.

But despite Wallace saying that Britain’s security services were “as sure as possible” that North Korea was behind WannaCry, a spokesperson for North Korea-Europe Association has blasted the claims as “groundless speculation” and said the UK’s accusations were questionable.

“This is an act beyond the limit of our tolerance and it makes us question the real purpose behind the UK’s move,” the spokesperson said according to the Korean Central News Agency.

“The moves of the UK government to doggedly associate the DPRK with the cyber-attack cannot be interpreted in any other way than a wicked attempt to lure the international community into harbouring greater mistrust of the DPRK.”

wannacry
The WannaCry malware caused disruption in May of this year

Wicked words

The spokesperson went on to call the UK’s accusation “a wicked attempt” to encourage the tightening of international sanctions made against the nation.

Postmortems of the WannaCry outbreak have seen international cyber security firms note that North Korea hackers or a hacker group sponsored by the nation, was responsible for the ransomware which affected the NHS along with a smorgasbord of organisations.

However, tracing back such cyber attacks is tricky given how hackers can use numerous proxy servers and networks to hide their tracks. And the rather isolationist nature of North Korea and its propaganda machine will likely see official from the nation continue to refute any blame laid at its doorstep for WannaCry and other cyber attacks.

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