And they will give some Equation Group files for free, But the best files are up for an auction, Wired reported. That’s more than half a billion dollars, and almost 1/15th of all the bitcoins in circulation.
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Still, they appeared to be genuine tools that might work if flaws have not been addressed.
In clumsily worded English, the Shadow Brokers also boasted online that they were saving their best stolen material for a public auction, to be sold to the highest bidder.
“We had already obtained the archive of NSA cyber weapons released earlier today and will release our own pristine copy in due course”, WikiLeaks said through its official Twitter account Monday. We hack Equation Group.
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. “Then you pay for more – but you get bored”. “Auction files better than Stuxnet”, said the group, referring to the sophisticated digital weapon, believed to be funded by the United States and Israel, that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear programme.
In a statement accompanying Shadow Broker’s release of a 134-megabyte teaser file, the alleged hackers behind the breach said they would release the “full state sponsor tool set” acquired from the Equation Group upon receiving 1 million bitcoin, or roughly $568 million.
The exploits are not run-of-the-mill tools to target everyday individuals.
“What’s new? NSA malware staging servers getting hacked by a rival is not new”. NSA research scientist Dave Aitel believes the more data might be taken on to a USB stick from an insider rather than a hack.
“Why did they do it?”
Snowden, the self-described superhacker spy, took to Twitter on Tuesday to say he thinks the public posting of what he described as NSA cybertools may be part of a broader influence operation by Russian Federation.
Snowden also noted the fact that the released files end in 2013. This hints this alleged hacker group of NSA that they are in trouble.
Further tweets made by the former NSA contractor suggest that ties exist between “The Shadow Brokers” and Russian Federation, the country that has hosted Snowden since his escape from the USA and the reported source of the DNC massive leak that took place a couple of months ago.
“This entire thing is a huge middle finger at America, at least that’s how some people would interpret it”, Thomas Rid, a professor in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, told Motherboard.
A successful hack of the NSA – if that’s what happened – would mark a major defeat for one of the crown jewels of the US government’s defense establishment. I’d also obviously want to know who the responsible parties were.
WikiLeaks also tweeted that it had a full copy of the NSA tools cache that it would soon put up online, which may bolster the Russian Federation theory.
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Although the NSA has legitimate reasons for keeping some cyber weapons, Grossman said there needs to be more public discussion on what its policies should be and how vendors can ensure their products are protected.
