Today Kaspersky said an implementation of the RC5 and RC6 encryption algorithms found in the data published by Shadow Brokers is identical to RC5 and RC6 code in Equation Group malware.
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Comae Technologies founder Matt Suiche said the theory of a disgruntled insider couldn’t be ruled out. Analysts say they believe the files are legitimate, and likely taken from the NSA’s Equation Group. Others are less convinced, arguing the dump is so comprehensive that it suggests a more direct attack: “someone walked out of a secure area with a USB key”. The group dates to the early 1990s. Its name also reflects how coding whizzes create exquisite tools from scratch, in the same way a fine tailor takes a bolt of wool and fashions a bespoke suit – only the computer geeks more often work in jeans and T-shirts.
U.S. hacked NTC to spy on Pakistan military, political leadership: Snowden documents was posted in National of TheNews International – https://www.thenews.com.pk on August 21, 2016 and was last updated on August 21, 2016. And the NSA hackers will peek into the enemy’s Launchpad and scrap pieces of evidence that will eventually lead to the bad guys. They use one or more such servers to make it hard to trace a hack.
– Edward Snowden (@Snowden) August 16, 20162) NSA is often lurking undetected for years on the C2 and ORBs (proxy hops) of state hackers. We follow Equation Group traffic.
“Whoever obtained the source code apparently broke into either the top-secret, highly compartmentalized computer servers of the N.S.A. or other servers around the world that the agency would have used to store the files”, the Times writes. “What’s unprecedented is to not realize you made a mistake”. “You would recognize, “Oops, I uploaded that set” and delete it”.
But the exact process is murky – and critics of the NSA have long suspected that the agency hoards undisclosed vulnerabilities to use in its information-gathering efforts. The anonymous hackers who obtained them claim they were stolen from the Equation Group, a top cyberespionage team that may be linked to the NSA and may have helped develop the Stuxnet worm. As researchers have looked more closely at that data, the seemingly haphazard leak now looks more like an global conflict.
Several security experts told United States media the code appears genuine, and Snowden said “circumstantial evidence” pointed to Russian involvement.
“This leak is likely a warning that someone can prove U.S. responsibility for any attacks that originated from this malware server”. While there’s no hard evidence connecting Russian Federation to the data as of now, on Twitter, Snowden argued that Russian Federation may have released the cache to wave the US government away from officially blaming hacks against the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations on the country.
Suggesting that the leak was likely to be a warning, Mr Snowden added: “That could have significant foreign policy consequences”. That could have major diplomatic fallout if, for instance, the tools were linked to spying on USA allies, Snowden argued. “Here’s why that is significant:” he added, explaining that the hack could be an effort to influence USA officials wondering how aggressively to respond to the DNC hack.
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Snowden concluded: “This leak looks like somebody sending a message that an escalation in the attribution game could get messy fast”.
