U.S. says North Korean charged in Sony hack and WannaCry attack

WASHINGTON — A computer programmer accused of working at the behest of the North Korean government was charged Thursday in connection with several high-profile cyberattacks, including the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack and the WannaCry ransomware virus that affected hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide.

Park Jin Hyok, believed to be in North Korea, conspired with others to conduct a series of attacks that also stole $81 million from a bank in Bangladesh, according to the Justice Department’s criminal complaint.

The U.S. believes he was working for a North Korean-sponsored hacking organization.

The U.S. has said North Korea was responsible for Park the 2014 Sony hack. That attack led to the release of sensitive personal information about Sony employees, including Social Security numbers, financial records, salary information, as well as embarrassing emails among top executives.

The hack included four yet-to-be released Sony films, among them “Annie,” and one that was in theaters, the Brad Pitt film “Fury,” and cost the company tens of millions of dollars.

The FBI had long suspected North Korea was also behind the last year’s WannaCry cyberattack, which used malware to scramble data at hospitals, factories, government agencies, banks and other businesses across the globe.

“This was one of the most complex and longest cyberinvestigations the department has taken,” said John Demers, assistant attorney general for national securi- ty.

The criminal complaint, filed in Los Angeles, alleges that the hackers committed several attacks from 2014 until 2018. The investigation is continuing.

Cybersecurity experts have said portions of the WannaCry program used the same code as malware distributed by the hacker collective known as the Lazarus Group, which is believed to be responsible for the Sony hack.

The indictment said that Park was on a team of programmers employed by an organization called Chosun Expo that operated out of Dalian, China, and that the FBI described as “a government front company.”

It is the first time the Justice Department has brought criminal charges against a hacker said to be from North Korea.

It is unlikely that Park will be extradited because the U.S. has no formal relations with North Korea and the government was not notified about the charges.