The National Security Administration (NSA) was allegedly hacked by a mysterious group calling itself “The Shadow Brokers,” and the “most powerful espionage tools” of the NSA’s elite hacker team, as the Washington Post put it, were leaked to the internet this weekend.
The Post reported late Tuesday:
“The exploits are not run-of-the-mill tools to target everyday individuals,” the Post added. “They are expensive software used to take over firewalls, such as Cisco and Fortinet, that are used ‘in the largest and most critical commercial, educational and government agencies around the world,’ said Blake Darche, another former TAO operator and now head of security research at Area 1 Security.”
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In a series of tweets, noted NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden posited that Russia was behind the breach.
As Forbes observed: “He believes, as do others, that the timing of the leak is interesting. As many of the leaked files were dated mid-2013, the hackers have been sitting on the data for at least three years. It’s only now the materials are being released, a matter of months after U.S. intelligence sources and American security companies claimed the Democratic National Committee (DNC) had been hacked by Russia. Snowden believes Russia is sending a warning on the dangers of attributing cyberattacks.”
“This leak is likely a warning that someone can prove U.S. responsibility for any attacks that originated from this malware server,” Snowden tweeted. “That could have significant foreign policy consequences. Particularly if any of those operations targeted U.S. allies.”
Read Snowden’s full theory here: