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Probe Of Leaked US NSA Hacking Tools Examines Operative's Mistake (reuters.com)
Joseph Menn and John Walcott, reporting for Reuters: A U.S. investigation into a leak of hacking tools used by the National Security Agency is focusing on a theory that one of its operatives carelessly left them available on a remote computer and Russian hackers found them, four people with direct knowledge of the probe told Reuters. The tools, which enable hackers to exploit software flaws in computer and communications systems from vendors such as Cisco Systems and Fortinet Inc, were dumped onto public websites last month by a group calling itself Shadow Brokers. The public release of the tools coincided with U.S. officials saying they had concluded that Russia or its proxies were responsible for hacking political party organizations in the run-up to the Nov. 8 presidential election. On Thursday, lawmakers accused Russia of being responsible. Various explanations have been floated by officials in Washington as to how the tools were stolen. Some feared it was the work of a leaker similar to former agency contractor Edward Snowden, while others suspected the Russians might have hacked into NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.
Those gosh darn Russian hackers.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Penetrating Ft Meade is probably nigh impossible. Not impossible but impractically hard- virtually everything critical is airgapped if they have proper security.
The Command and Control server theory is most plausible.
In fact I wouldn't be surprised if some of the NSA's tools were originally pilfered from the Russians, as the NSA has a definite tendency to hoard the goodies as opposed to flaunting how they just snatched them off the other boy and handing them out.
Bigger picture: you saw how Snowden easily accessed all the NSA secret documents. You read how Dual_EC_DRBG, was an encryption random number generator with a backdoor key that let them strip encryption with as little as 32 bytes of a message.
If they couldn't keep their own tools secret, and couldn't keep their own staff from access to everything (2 million plus US contractors security cleared), then that backdoor key will also have been stolen.
Which means every password sent over networks protected by that encryption are also compromised. But hey, lets not give Snowden a pardon, lets give General Alexander a fat lucrative contract instead.... because...merika!
The operative's job requires them to place their tools on remote machines. That is how you make progress on a hack. I'm guessing they had a 'favorite' bundle that they deployed rather than trying tools one at a time like they were probably supposed to.
This is one of those things where even if you're not "careless," you're still eventually going to give it away anyway. If someone wants your stuff, all they have to do is lure you into a honeypot. Then you go on trying everything, thinking that "rm" deletes whatever you just used. Nope.
The mistake was in the strategy, not the procedures. You can't put stuff on someone else's machine and still assume you've retained a monopoly.
After reading that the NSA "tuned its tools" to detect use of the released exploits, I think that it really could have been a purposeful leaked. You know, build in some honeypots in the leak and see if you can find out more about the groups that would use the methods.
Remember when it was the Chinese and not the Russians that were breaking into corporate and government systems everywhere all the time? Why it seems that it was only just 1-2 years ago that Slashdot featured almost daily articles where the Chinese military was the big ol' CYBERBAD that the US was on the brink of going to cyberwar with. Now? Well, apparently the Chinese have seen the error of their hacking ways because I can't recall a single story in the $CURRENT_YEAR that's involved Chinese hackers. Instead its PUUUUUTTTTTIIIINNNNNN! Just like our hollywood movies, our politics are now all about nostalgia, particularly Cold War nostalgia.
About Israel's interest in the Amercian Presidential (s)election.
Coincidence? I think not.
Rookie epic fail
Next time, remember: there is no such thing as a secure cloud service. Ever.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
the russians cant hack our shit they just found it laying around when someone left them on the shared global spy server. they aint /that/ good.
Russian (state sponsored) hackers seem to be the scapegoat du jour. For the past few years, all hacking was attributed to Chinese hackers. Then Donald Trump makes some flippant statement, the news starts talking about the Russian government hacking the DNC and BAM, all hacking is now attributed to Russian hackers.
Did China suddenly stop hacking entirely? Are there no longer any hackers in Romania? Where did the Nigerians go?
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by autism.
The tools, which enable [salaried government employees] (who don't understand how they work) to exploit software flaws in computer and communications systems (which they also don't fundamentally understand), from [American companies] such as Cisco Systems and Fortinet Inc, (whose customers and reputations and overall integrity they also don't care about), were dumped onto public websites last month by a group calling itself Shadow Brokers.
There, FTFY.
It must be the Russkies, the Default Culprit.
The tools are spyware, in the sense if you use them, the tools will call home to the NSA and tell them all about you.
A few years back they had their own distro of linux they made available to the public, and the first thing it did on boot up was call home.
Don't trust them. Besides, there are better tools out there.
Of Thomas Jefferson were alive today he'd be really old
NSA officials have told investigators that an employee or contractor made the mistake about three years ago during an operation that used the tools, the people said...
Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that the former NSA person, who has since departed the agency for other reasons, left the tools exposed deliberately.
Snowden left the agency about three years ago for "other reasons". Just a coincidence I'm sure.
C'mon people... get it right. It's "extremely careless" and you're off the hook, no charges will be recommended.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
Yup, this is exactly why a government-held "master encryption key for all US-based transactions" must never, ever be allowed to happen. Even the NSA 'is still making' mistakes and will continue to do so..
....who we can blame this one on yet?
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.