Tools and Weapons: The Promise and The Peril of the Digital Age

by Brad Smith

As our security experts noted, North Korea had used ransomware before, but their tradecraft had been different. They had selected high-value targets such as banks and demanded large sums of money in a discreet way. Indiscriminate demands to pay three hundred dollars to unlock a machine represented a departure, to say the least. What if the whole ransomware approach was just a cover to throw the press and public off the real message, which was intended to be more discreetly understood by US and allied officials? If North Korea was responding with its own cyberattack to a US cyberattack, then the whole episode was even more significant than people have appreciated. It was the closest thing the world has experienced to a global “hot” cyberwar. It would mean that this was an attack in which the impact on civilians represented more than collateral damage. It was the intended effect.