The public release by a previously unknown group called the Shadow Brokers of information purportedly stolen from a server run by the National Security Agency’s hacking team is providing a lot of fodder for conspiracy theorists, but hard facts are in short supply.
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The group posted its claim on the data theft in a now-deleted post to the microblogging site Tumblr, the report said.
To arouse interest in the auction, the hackers released samples of programs they said could break into popular firewall software made by companies including Cisco Systems Inc, Juniper Networks Inc and Fortinet Inc.
NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden on Tuesday injected himself into an escalating cyberstruggle that could affect the us presidential election.
The hackers, which has now obtained top secret hacking software from Equation Group, added: “We follow Equation Group traffic”. Many have floated the possibility of Russian involvement, a theory that received unexpected support when NSA leaker Edward Snowden endorsed it on Twitter.
Kaspersky Labs, a Russia-based security group, previous year documented 500 infections by Equation Group in at least 42 countries, with Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Syria, and Mali topping the list, according to arstechnica. “This is how we follow their operations”. “Auction files better than Stuxnet”, they said.
But the “teaser” files don’t include any very valuable information, he says – and the question now is whether the hackers actually have more files.
The hackers claim to have ripped tools from The Equation Group, which has been linked to the NSA’s hacking efforts. “We give you some Equation Group files free, you see”. He suggests that it is a Russian-originated attack created to expose evidence of NSA cyber warfare activities. When Kaspersky Lab revealed the existence of the Equation Group, one thing the security researchers didn’t do was to specifically name the NSA.
Snowden wrote the “circumstantial evidence and conventional wisdom” suggested Russian Federation was behind the alleged hack. At this point, the cybersecurity community seems in disagreement as to the veracity of the Shadow Brokers’ claims, leading to the conclusion that if it is a hoax, it is a job well done.
Although this sounds like a nightmare for the NSA on the face of it, a number of researchers have pointed out that this doesn’t necessarily mean the NSA has been hacked directly.
A cache of hacking tools with code names such as Epicbanana, Buzzdirection and Egregiousblunder appeared mysteriously online over the weekend, setting the security world abuzz with speculation over whether the material was legitimate.
“This leak is likely a warning that someone can prove U.S. responsibility for any attacks that originated from this malware server”, said Snowden. “That could have significant foreign policy consequences”.
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Both the Times and the Washington Post published prominent news pieces on Wednesday, two days after the leak, seeking, without presenting any factual substantiation, to attribute the breach to the Russian government. While Kaspersky’s report tied the Equation Group to operations carried out by US intelligence, it did not definitely identify the group as an NSA outfit.
