Shadow Brokers crack open NSA hacking tool cache for world+dog

Daaaamn, these exploits are old-school

The self-styled Shadow Brokers group has made a collection of NSA hacking tools and exploits publicly available.

The group released a password for their archive, making it available to all and sundry. They (unsuccessfully) attempted to auction off the trove last year.

In a (ranty) statement, Shadow Brokers said it was making the 2013 vintage hacking tools available as a protest against President Trump "abandoning" his base by bombing Syria in the wake of a chemical weapons attack on civilians, among other things.

Shadow Brokers made its name hawking exploits and vulnerabilities sourced from the Equation Group. Documents leaked by intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden provide persuasive evidence that hacking tools previously leaked by the Shadow Brokers included malware and exploits that began life at the signals intelligence agency. Shadow Brokers said it was quitting back in January and released 58 Windows tools by way of a parting gift.

The latest leak includes a list of NSA targets alongside details of the implants deployed against them. Some of these targets involve systems of US allies, in Western Europe and elsewhere, such as universities. This is consistent with the NSA's practice of hacking anything and everything.

More damagingly, the leak implies that the US government concealed knowledge of a critical weakness in Linux systems.

Most of the exploits are old so it may be that the Shadow Brokers are either holding back on releasing the "good stuff" or never had them in the first place.

Snowden commented: "Quick review of the #ShadowBrokers leak of Top Secret NSA tools reveals it's nowhere near the full library, but there's still so much here that NSA should be able to instantly identify where this set came from and how they lost it. If they can't, it's a scandal." ®