The draft of a top-secret NSA manual for implanting offensive malware, released by Edward Snowden, contains code for a program codenamed SECONDDATE. While the “auction” seemed tongue-in-cheek, more like hacktivists than Russian high command, the sample documents were almost certainly real. And should the total sum of the bids, in bitcoins, reach the equivalent of half a billion dollars, the group would make the whole lot public. However, those with losing bids “Lose Lose,” it said, because they would not receive their money back. The group said it was releasing some NSA files for “free” and promised “better” ones to the highest bidder. In what appeared more like a “Saturday Night Live” skit than an act of cybercrime, a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers put up for bid on the Internet what it called a “full state-sponsored toolset” of “cyberweapons.” “!!! Attention government sponsors of cyberwarfare and those who profit from it !!!! How much would you pay for enemies cyberweapons?” said the announcement. If that’s the case, it’s one more reason to question the usefulness of an agency that secretly collects private information on millions of Americans but can’t keep its most valuable data from being stolen, or as it appears in this case, being used against us. Once revealed, companies and governments would patch their firewalls, just as the bank would change its combination.Ī more logical explanation could also be insider theft. It would be like a safecracker stealing the combination to a bank vault and putting it on Facebook. In addition, if Russia had stolen the hacking tools, it would be senseless to publicize the theft, let alone put them up for sale. Once again, the usual suspects start with Russia – though there seems little evidence backing up the accusation. Now, in the latest twist, hacking tools themselves, likely stolen from the National Security Agency, are on the digital auction block. Where the Watergate burglars came away empty-handed and in handcuffs, the modern- day cyber thieves walked away with tens of thousands of sensitive political documents and are still unidentified.
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