When US President Barack Obama publicly accused North Korea of the devastating cyber attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment, it represented a serious escalation of tensions between a military superpower and an unpredictable nuclear-armed dictatorship. This cyber attack was apparently prompted by North Korea’s fury over the entertainment company’s crude comedic movie The Interview, about the fictional assassination of its leader Kim Jong Un.

Labelling the movie an “act of terror”, North Korea warned that it would take “a decisive and merciless countermeasure” if Washington permitted Sony to release the movie in any format or on any platform. At the time, the North Korean threat seemed as ridiculous as the movie.

Sony experienced one of the most destructive cyber attacks ever against an American target. The attack compromised its information infrastructure by erasing two-thirds of its computer systems and servers and leaking sensitive creative, contractual, legal, operational and personnel data. Its seriousness was further magnified by the accompanying threat of terrorist attacks on the scale of September 11 against cinemas scheduled to show the controversial movie. This cyber attack soon escalated to a national security threat.

Sony initially withdrew its scheduled Christmas Day release of The Interview and suspended any further kinds of release. Arguably, for the first time, a foreign country directly curtailed and undermined free speech and artistic expression in the US. Sony was swiftly criticised by the White House, Hollywood celebrities, and civic and rights groups for its seeming capitulation to North Korean threats. The company eventually reversed its decision by providing a limited simultaneous cinematic and online release in a reduced number of cinemas and a few online platforms.

President Obama coupled his public accusation with a warning of a “proportionate response”. Within days, Washington imposed additional sanctions on Pyongyang while North Korea’s internet went completely offline. Since its revival, North Korea’s internet has experienced intermittent failures. Pyongyang condemns this latest round of sanctions and blames Washington for these disruptions as misplaced retaliation for the Sony incident. Washington denies involvement in these internet failures. Moreover, the FBI refuses to release evidence implicating North Korea in the Sony cyber attack because of possible revelations of the extent the US has penetrated North Korea’s digital networks and the Chinese systems through which they are hosted and routed. But for President Obama to take the exceedingly rare step of publicly identifying North Korea as the culprit, imposing sanctions, and warning of a “proportionate response” indicates a high level of official certainty of Pyongyang’s culpability.

Cyber attacks are becoming common features of contemporary espionage, sabotage, terrorism, and warfare. They aim to demean, disrupt, disable, or destroy their target’s information infrastructures. They should not be underestimated as more virtual than real as our world and lives become increasingly hyperconnected. They are serious threats that are increasing in scale, scope and severity, resulting in significant damage in both the digital and physical realms. Until now, however, no cyber attack on the US has provoked an explicit public response, retaliation, or sanctions from Washington, especially not against another sovereign state.

But Washington’s sanctions and cyber retaliation against Pyongyang is a misguided response fraught with difficult challenges. To begin, North Korea is already subject to so many sanctions that imposing more is relatively futile. Further, North Korea is such an unconnected and unwired society that cyber targets are few, while opportunities for retaliation against the US are vast.

Cyber retaliation could result in unintended collateral damage due to its unpredictability, especially as systems become increasingly connected

Cyber retaliation’s effectiveness, meanwhile, in deterring cyber attacks is limited. First, its challenges include difficulty in attributing cyber attacks to a specific adversary because of the diverse and distributed digital nature of such attacks. It is therefore challenging to impose penalties like sanctions, or enact punishments, against alleged cyber attackers since their actual roles remain inconclusive. Retaliation may mistakenly target suspected but innocent, instead of confirmed and guilty, culprits.

Second, the US is limited by its own actions, threats and evidence. Unless the US announces its retaliatory role, its threats will lack credibility or persuasiveness since adversaries will be unsure if it did or can retaliate. Some cyber attackers will conclude that they can continue to target the US with impunity in cyberspace. The US is further limited by such an announcement’s risks. It is not in the its interest to alert its adversaries about its access to their systems, disclose evidence and its collection practices, and, perhaps most significantly, reveal its actual cyber capabilities.

Third, cyber retaliation could result in unintended collateral damage due to its unpredictability, especially as systems become increasingly connected. Such consequences could in fact have both direct and indirect effects on the US itself because of the world’s connectivity and also because of the country’s own dependence on cyberspace.

Fourth, retaliation against the internet establishes an unethical precedent. Although North Korea has barely any civilian users, the internet is a civilian tool. Targeting it for retaliation unjustly punishes civilian uses and users for the cyber attacks of their governments. Now that the precedent is set, however, this same action could be executed against other countries and, as a result, their civilians.

A more effective response from Washington would involve a more nuanced and multi-pronged approach that enlists international support. First, the Obama administration should emphasise that this cyber attack is not simply about Sony or the US but instead about North Korean atrocities and threats to the wider world. It should stress that this cyber attack is representative of the regime’s crimes that should be urgently addressed by all before others are similarly targeted. To highlight this conviction, the US should relist North Korea as a state-sponsor of terrorism.

Second, Washington should use this cyber attack as an opportunity to begin an international discussion about cyber attacks and retaliation. It should encourage multilateral negotiations and consensus through the United Nations and other global political, diplomatic, and legal organisations on establishing standards, mechanisms, and forums for dealing with these risks and their responses.

Third, Washington should continue supporting efforts to break North Korea’s information blockade that keeps its people oppressed and isolated. It should increase covert shipments of information communication technologies such as mobile phones, computers, flash drives, televisions, radios, and DVDs, into North Korea to help open the closed information environment. It should also increase sponsorship of covert radio and television broadcasts into the hermit kingdom with pro-democracy and anti-Kim Jong Un messages.

Finally, if Washington determines cyber retaliation is necessary, it should only target the digital infrastructure of the regime’s political and military agencies instead of its (admittedly few) internet connections. This response would affect Pyongyang instead of North Korean civilians while helping undermine the unethical precedent – already set – of targeting the civilian internet.

The long-term implications of this ongoing digital conflagration remain unclear. While short of an act of war, the cyber attack on Sony is much more than a crime or corporate sabotage. It is a serious national, indeed international, security threat that will affect the future of both the internet and the rules of cyber warfare engagement. The question now is whether North Korea and the US will de-escalate tensions to avoid a possibly more catastrophic digital outcome.

Marc Kosciejew is a lecturer at the University of Malta’s Faculty of Media and Knowledge Sciences. He toured North Korea in 2007 and has published some of the first English-language research on North Korean libraries.

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