The White House said a new executive order targets leaders in North Korea’s government, preventing them from accessing property and entering the United States. The isolated nuclear regime, which has denied involvement in the Sony hack, was already subject to a strict set of U.S. economic restrictions.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has maintained North Korea was behind the broad computer breach at Sony, despite evidence that some technology experts said points instead to former employees of the studio. On Friday officials said the new set of sanctions was further indication of their confidence in North Korea’s culpability, and said that private tech firms aren’t privy to the intelligence proving Pyongyang’s guilt.
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That seemed to indicate the widespread Internet outages reported in North Korea last week were not a retaliatory response to the Sony hack, though administration officials would not confirm the blackout came at the hands of the United States.
“There are many possible explanations for (North Korea’s) Internet outage, including the possibility that they had ended up doing it to themselves,” one U.S. official said.
