Their madcap, Borat-like manifesto rails against the “Wealthy Elite” and the group’s name appears to be a nod to the “Mass Effect” series of video games, where an elusive Shadow Broker traffics in sensitive information.
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These weapons were claimed to be hacked and stolen from “The Equation Group” an alleged National Security Agency hacking group. They use one or more such servers to make it hard to trace a hack. But it is too early to say if this code comes from Equation or another group of spies linked to the famous American agency. That’s more than half a billion dollars, and almost 1/15th of all the bitcoins in circulation.
Snowden himself has said he believes in the veracity of The Shadow Brokers. The second, encrypted, file is being auctioned off to the highest bidder.
The documents have been leaked as part of a surreal online auction by a group calling itself “Shadow Brokers”.
If the files do prove to be from the NSA, it would show that hackers can penetrate even some of the nation’s most closely guarded material. It’s like Pokemon Go. “Then you pay for more – but you get bored”.
The Washington Post reports that the hacking tools released in the teaser file – with names such as Epicbanana, Buzzdirection and Egregiousblunder – are highly sophisticated.
The dumped files contained configurations for command and control servers, installation scripts, and exploits targeted to specific routers and firewalls.
The exploits are not run-of-the-mill tools to target everyday individuals. The released code could in theory have been faked, doctored to smear the agency.
The office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the NSA, did not return requests for comment.
“Why did they do it?”
Suspecting that the leak is “more diplomacy than intelligence”, Snowden noted that he thinks Russian Federation is behind Shadow Brokers’ activities.
Despite it being hard to determine whether these files are 100pc legitimate, a number of security researchers have said that this certainly looks like it could be genuine. “The hack of an NSA malware staging server is not unprecedented, but the publication of the take is”, he added.
“Circumstantial evidence and conventional wisdom indicates Russian responsibility”, he said on Twitter.
In a blog post, it said: “While we cannot surmise the attacker’s identity or motivation nor where or how this pilfered trove came to be, we can state that several hundred tools from the leak share a strong connection with our previous findings from the Equation Group”.
Meanwhile, WikiLeaks has also stepped into the cyber-drama.
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The possible hacking of NSA systems and the theft of cyber weapons has not been confirmed by United States authorities yet.
