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the case, the cold war perfume, intrigue specialists intelligence and IT security services for three days. On August 13, The Shadow Brokers, a group of unknown hackers hitherto published on the Internet a series of tools and computer spying program he claims to have stolen the Equation group, a transparent reference to National Security Agency (NSA), responsible for the United States of digital espionage
Read also:. Behind the group “equation”, hides the NSA
authentic data
the Shadow Brokers would have got hold of what the agency – which is done best in computer defense – the most precious, namely a small part of its IT arsenal. This improbable hypothesis took a few hours, a considerable weight.
On Monday, many security researchers have examined the data published by The Shadow Brokers. They found a series of tools to circumvent “firewalls” safety devices ubiquitous in business and government, as well as spyware programs to extract data on computer networks, including at least one used a vulnerability iT unprecedented sign of skilled attackers.
the richness and quantity of data, the type of programs that are found there convinced nearly all experts they had before them a authentic material. In addition, two former members of elite hackers service of the agency reported in Washington Post that the files they seemed quite genuine. Two companies whose programs online seemed exploit vulnerabilities announced to have corrected, another sign of the authenticity of the spoils.
Finally, Tuesday, Aug. 16 in the late afternoon, the Russian firm behind the discovery of the equation group has accredited a little more the hypothesis that a small part of the best kept secrets of the NSA was indeed in nature.
According to Kaspersky, the files posted by the Shadow Brokers and tools used by the equation group, so the NSA, “share specific and rare characteristics,” which falsification is “highly unlikely” , Russian experts conclude “with high confidence” that the data published by the Shadow Brokers indeed belong to the equation group.
Who behind the Shadow Brokers
these data appear relatively old: dates present within the published documents indicate that those files were stolen from the NSA about the summer and fall of 2013 . If this date has not been falsified, why hackers today decide to publish such explosive information? In this nebula case certainty of fault, can only advance hypotheses. For many observers, the pirates wanted to send a message.
This is the opinion of Edward Snowden, who defected in 2013 to reveal some NSA practices. For him, it is not unusual that the data from the intelligence services are pirated. What is more original, he wrote in a series of posts on his Twitter account, is that this exploit is found in the open. The publication of such data would be a message. The analysis is shared by Bruce Schneier, a recognized expert in information security, Nicholas Weaver, a researcher at the University of Berkeley, or Dave Aitel, former NSA agent.
Arrange, for three years, NSA tools not only to use them for its own account, but mainly to better detect – and monitor – the attacks by the US agency. Who would have interest now to make the Americans understand that their offensive Internet activities are closely monitored? Or, in other words, behind The Shadow Brokers?
In recent weeks, Russia has been accused, including senior US officials of being behind the hacking of the US Democratic Party and organize the publication, particularly by WikiLeaks of thousands of internal emails to influence the November presidential election. Should we see in the publication of part of the toolbox of the NSA against a Russian attack in the escalation between the Kremlin and the US authorities?
Perhaps the coming days will bring answers: in a message posted on the Internet, the Shadow Brokers have auctioned some data, currently protected by password, promising even more interesting revelations
. Read also: the Democratic Party sees the hand of Russia behind the publication of emails by WikiLeaks
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