- President Barack Obama vowed on Friday to respond to a devastating cyberattack on Sony Pictures that he blamed on North Korea, and scolded the Hollywood studio for caving in to what he described as a foreign dictator imposing censorship in America.
Obama said the cyberattack caused a lot of damage to Sony but the company should not have let itself be intimidated into halting the public release of "The Interview," a lampoon portraying the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
"We will respond," Obama told an end-of-year news conference. "We'll respond proportionally, and we'll respond in a place and time and manner that we choose."
Obama said he wished that Sony had spoken to him first before yanking the movie, suggesting it could set a bad precedent. "I think they made a mistake," he said.
But the effect of any response would be limited given North Korea's isolation and the fact that it is already heavily sanctioned for its nuclear program.
There is also the risk that an overly harsh U.S. response could provoke Pyongyang to escalate into cyber warfare.
Non-conventional capabilities such as cyberwarfare and nuclear technology are the weapons of choice for the impoverished North, defectors said in Seoul.
They said the Sony attack may have been a practice run for North Korea's "cyberarmy" as part of its long-term goal of being able to cripple its rivals' telecommunications and energy grids.
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