The Problem of Attribution in Cyber Attacks: The Sony Example

At Fort Sumter, Union troops quickly identified the forces that were bombarding them as newly minted Confederate artillery. Similarly, at Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy immediately identified Japan as the source of the bombing raid because of the unmistakable markings on the low-flying aircraft overhead. In attacks involving conventional warfare, “attribution,” or the identification of an attacker, is readily apparent. In the case of attacks in cyberspace, however, attribution is a much more complex problem, as the recent hack on Sony Pictures Entertainment demonstrates. The purpose of this article is to explore the issue of attribution through the . . .