A U.S. expert on Korea has suggested that China may have assisted North Korea in hacking Sony Pictures Entertainment.
 
Dennis Halpin, a visiting scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, raised the possibility in an article posted on the Web site of “The Weekly Standard.”
 
Halpin said one of the major clandestine offices of Bureau 121, Pyongyang’s cyber warfare agency, is reportedly located inside a hotel in China’s northeast city of Shenyang, noting that the city is not far from the North’s border.
 
He said it “seems plausible that Beijing’s computer experts have provided training to those North Korean hackers reportedly involved in the Sony attack.”
 
On Beijing’s knowledge of the attack, Halpin said, “it seems highly unlikely that such a major intelligence operation could be conducted by a foreign power on Chinese soil without Chinese official awareness.”