Still, the administration is clearly stung by the comparisons to the George W. Bush administration’s reliance on faulty intelligence assessments about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 American-led invasion of the country. They note how rare it is for Mr. Obama, usually cautious on intelligence issues, to blame a specific country so directly. But they continue to insist that they cannot explain the basis of the president’s declaration without revealing some of the most sensitive sources and technologies at their disposal.

By naming 10 individuals at the center of the North’s effort to sell or obtain weapons technology, the administration seemed to be trying to echo sanctions that the Bush administration imposed eight years ago against a Macao bank that the North Korean leadership used to buy goods illicitly and to reward loyalists. President Bush, speaking to reporters one evening in the White House, argued that those sanctions were the only ones that got the attention of Kim Jong-il, whose son has ruled the country since his death in 2011.

In another sign of how Mr. Obama was seeking to punish individual leaders, the executive order he signed gives the Treasury Department broad authority to name anyone in the country’s leadership believed to be involved in illicit activity, and to take action against the Workers’ Party, which has complete control of North Korea’s politics.

In a statement, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew suggested that the sanctions were intended not only to punish North Korea for the hacking of Sony — which resulted in the destruction of about three-quarters of the computers and servers at the studio’s main operations — but also to warn the country not to try anything like it again.

“Today’s actions are driven by our commitment to hold North Korea accountable for its destructive and destabilizing conduct,” Mr. Lew said. “Even as the F.B.I. continues its investigation into the cyberattack against Sony Pictures Entertainment, these steps underscore that we will employ a broad set of tools to defend U.S. businesses and citizens, and to respond to attempts to undermine our values or threaten the national security of the United States.”

Beyond the initial sanctions, the power of the president’s order might come from its breadth and its use in the future. One senior official said the order would allow the Treasury to impose sanctions on any person who is an official of the North Korean government or of the Worker’s Party or anyone judged “controlled by the North Korean government” or acting on its behalf.