FBI chief: Sony hackers ‘got sloppy’

FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday offered the agency’s most clear evidence to date linking the North Korean government to the Sony Pictures Entertainment cyberattack.

The hackers behind the incident “got sloppy,” Comey said according to multiple reports, and connected to the Internet through North Korean IP addresses. For most of the attack, the cyber criminals used proxy servers in places such as Singapore and Thailand, but slipped up, giving the FBI its believed smoking gun.

{mosads}“There is not much in this life that I have confidence about, but I have very high confidence in this attribution,” Comey told the audience at Fordham Law School, NBC News reported.

The cyber assault on Sony shut down the movie studio’s computer system, exposed troves of its sensitive documents and emails, and caused the temporary cancellation of the Christmas Day release of the multimillion-dollar comedy “The Interview.”

The White House accused Pyongyang of targeting Sony in retaliation for the film, which portrays an American plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Comey’s remarks were his first about the incident and come as a growing chorus of cyber experts express skepticism about the FBI’s official story.

Numerous cybersecurity firms have offered evidence they say links the attack to one or more disgruntled ex-Sony employees. A major factor driving doubts is the lack of a connection between these hackers and the East Asian regime.

“They don’t have the facts that I have; they don’t see what I see,” Comey said.

Reuters reported that Comey pushed for the declassification of this evidence to quell any suspicion about who was behind the hack.

In recent weeks, the FBI and other agencies, as well as the State Department, have staunchly defended their claim that North Korea is behind the Sony hack.