White House Blames Sony Hack on North Korea, Imposes New Sanctions

The White House kicked off what it said is the first part of a counter-response to the high-profile hack into Sony Pictures Entertainment. It issued an executive order imposing additional sanctions against the government of North Korea, which it says committed the cyberattack. It’s “a response to the Government of North Korea’s ongoing provocative, destabilizing, and repressive actions and policies, particularly its destructive and coercive cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement Friday. “The E.O. authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to impose sanctions on individuals and entities associated with the Government of North Korea. We take seriously North Korea’s attack that aimed to create destructive financial effects on a U.S. company and to threaten artists and other individuals with the goal of restricting their right to free expression.” The order is targeted at North Korea's government and not its people, President Barack Obama said in a letter to Capitol Hill leaders. The order “provides criteria for blocking the property and interests in property of any person determined” to be affiliated with the North Korean government or “to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, the Government of North Korea or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked" pursuant to the order, Obama said. North Korea has denied responsibility for the attack. The FBI issued a news release Dec. 19 saying it concluded the North Korean government is responsible and that the attack reaffirms that “cyber threats pose one of the gravest national security dangers” to the U.S. The Department of the Treasury issued its own news release Friday saying three entities and 10 individuals are targeted under the sanctions order. “Even as the FBI continues its investigation into the cyber-attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment, these steps underscore that we will employ a broad set of tools to defend U.S. businesses and citizens, and to respond to attempts to undermine our values or threaten the national security of the United States,” Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew said in a statement.