ShadowBrokers, the hacking outfit that uncovered the EternalBlue windows exploit behind WannaCry, claim to be in possession of ‘75% of the NSA’s arsenal’ and will start to release it in June.
WannaCry is still causing chaos across businesses and government agencies in 150 countries across the globe, although it is now losing momentum.
After spending May ‘feeling guilty’ about WannaCry’s devastation, which included operating theatres having to reschedule vital surgeries in the UK, ShadowBrokers are gearing up to release fresh NSA tools that cover web browsers, routers, smartphones, data from the international money transfer network Swift and “compromised network data from Russian, Chinese, Iranian, or North Korean nukes and missile programs”.
The standard of English on the group’s Medium and Steemit pages is very poor, sometimes bordering on illegible. However, the group have never failed on any of their claims.
The Microsoft 10 operating system is specifically mentioned as being the victim of one exploit, suggesting that the Microsoft security patching team are in for a rough time once again, and that the Cold War brewing between Microsoft and the NSA is set to be amplified further.
Many individuals, including NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, believe based on contextual evidence that ShadowBrokers are linked to the Kremlin. Ultimately, no one has brought to light any hard evidence from the group’s methods or digital footprint to prove that this is the case.
Another theory claims that ShadowBrokers have a source within the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations team, and that the NSA was never even hacked. Some NSA data obtained the ShadowBrokers was reportedly stored on a physically segregated network that was not attached to the internet, making it impossible to access via remote hacking.
The NSA have so far refused to comment on the new breach in their trove of cyber weapons.
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