Barack Obama has engaged in more spying than any president in U.S. history. It has well and truly rankled feelings abroad in government circles and made American intelligence a greater global target.
A hacking group called "The Shadow Brokers"
has hacked the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and
swiped very important files. "The Shadow Brokers" are now
offering vital NSA spy tools, such as original malware,
spyware and virus programs authored by the agency, which is
National Security Agency intellectual property, for illegal
sale on black market websites. The files are being sold in
two batches.
Government hackers from world nations, as
well as civilian computer hackers, are trying to get their
hands on the exclusive NSA programs, manuals and other top
secret agency files swiped in the unprecedented hack.
Initial reports state the hackers in question are of Russian
origin, but this has not been confirmed. In another recent
unprecedented hack, Russian hackers hacked the Democratic
National Party (DNC), copied and then released 20,000
embarrassing emails revealing hypocrisy among the liberals
managing the political party, who are engaging in
anti-religious prejudice, racism, xenophobia and homophobia.
The NSA routinely hacks the computers of Americans, international citizens, world governments and
global corporations, to steal data and proprietary
information, such as top secret files and protected trade
secrets. However, this marks the first major case of the NSA
being hacked with their intellectual property swiped and
financially exploited to the highest bidders. This data loss
is quite damaging to the NSA, as their own tools are being
used against American politicians, corporations and high
profile silicon valley executives. The NSA shouldn’t be
surprised, as this development, as they do this to others on
a regular basis.
STORY SOURCE
‘Shadow Brokers’ Claim to be Selling NSA Malware, in What Could Be Historic Hack
Programs posted online allow espionage on network devices
‘Shadow Brokers’ Claim to be Selling NSA Malware, in What Could Be Historic Hack
Programs posted online allow espionage on network devices
August 15, 2016 - A mysterious online group
calling itself “The Shadow Brokers” is claiming to have
penetrated the National Security Agency, stolen some of its
malware, and is auctioning off the files to the highest
bidder. The authenticity of the files cannot be confirmed
but appear to be legitimate, according to security
researchers who have studied their content. Their release
comes on the heels of a series of disclosures of emails and
documents belonging mostly to Democratic officials, but also
to Republicans. Security researchers believe those breaches
were perpetrated by agents thought to be acting on behalf of
Moscow.
The NSA did not answer Foreign Policy’s
questions about the alleged breach on Monday. But if someone
has managed to penetrate the American signals intelligence
agency and post its code online for the world to see — and
purchase — it would constitute a historic black eye for the
agency. “It’s at minimum very interesting; at maximum,
hugely damaging,” said Dave Aitel, a former NSA research
scientist and now the CEO of the security firm Immunity.
“It’ll blow some operations if those haven’t already been
blown.”
The files posted over the weekend include
two sets of files. The hackers have made one set available
for free. The other remains encrypted and is the subject of
an online auction, payable in bitcoin, the cryptocurrency.
That set includes, according to the so-called Shadow
Brokers, “the best files.” If they receive at least 1
million bitcoin — the equivalent of at least $550 million —
they will post more documents and make them available for
free.
The set of files available for free contains
a series of tools for penetrating network gear made by
Cisco, Juniper, and other major firms. Targeting such gear,
which includes things like routers and firewalls, is a known
tactic of Western intelligence agencies like the NSA, and
was documented in the Edward Snowden files. Some code words
referenced in the material Monday — BANANAGLEE and JETPLOW —
match those that have appeared in documents leaked by
Snowden. Security researchers analyzing the code posted
Monday say it is functional and includes computer codes for
carrying out espionage.
The Equation Group is a collection of
hackers whose activities were first documented by Kaspersky
Lab, a Russian cybersecurity firm, last year. Kaspersky
connected the activities of the Equation Group, which it
called “a threat actor that surpasses anything known in
terms of complexity and sophistication of techniques,” to
operations carried out by U.S. intelligence. While Kaspersky
did not outright attribute the Equation Group to the NSA,
security researchers say in private that they believe it is
a project of the American signals intelligence unit...
