N. KOREA BEHIND CYBER ATTACK: WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday publicly blamed North Korea for a “careless and reckless” ransomware attack that infected hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide in May and crippled parts of Britain’s National Health Service.

Homeland security adviser Tom Bossert, pictured, told reporters at a White House briefing that North Korea was directly responsible for the WannaCry ransomware attack and that Pyongyang will be held accountable for it.

“This was a careless and reckless attack. It affected individuals, industry, governments and the consequences were beyond economic. The computers affected badly in the U.K. in their health care system put lives at risk, not just money,” Bossert said.

Bossert said the administration’s finding of responsibility is based on evidence and confirmed by other private companies and foreign governments, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Japan. He said Microsoft traced the attack to cyber affiliates of the North Korean government.

He said Trump “has used just about every lever you can use short of starving the North Korean people to death to change their behaviour. So we don’t have a lot of room left here to apply pressure to change their behaviour. It’s nevertheless important to call them out, let them know it’s them and we know it’s them.”