The NSA Hacked?! ‘Shadow Brokers’ Claim to be Selling NSA Malware, in What Could Be Historic Hack

This could be bad news for privacy activists. The capabilities of the NSA are being spread to the highest bidder!

Programs posted online allow espionage on network devices.
BY ELIAS GROLLAUGUST 15, 2016ELIAS.GROLL@ELIASGROLLfacebooktwittergoogle-plusredditLinkedIn email
‘Shadow Brokers’ Claim to be Selling NSA Malware, in What Could Be Historic Hack
A mysterious online group calling itself “The Shadow Brokers” is claiming to have penetrated the National Security Agency, stolen some of its malware, and is auctioning off the files to the highest bidder.

The authenticity of the files cannot be confirmed but appear to be legitimate, according to security researchers who have studied their content. Their release comes on the heels of a series of disclosures of emails and documents belonging mostly to Democratic officials, but also to Republicans. Security researchers believe those breaches were perpetrated by agents thought to be acting on behalf of Moscow.

Not a lot is known but they claim the hack is from Russia. If it's true that NSA malware is now accessible by anybody then this could be potentially devastating to everyone's privacy because even more people will have unauthorized access to networks. Without details as to how this malware works it might not even be something we can protect our networks from. Of course the hackers are choosing to accept Bitcoin which is also bizarre considering how Bitcoin can be traced, but when you also consider that there was a recent huge hack of Bitfinex, and now consider this, there will be demand for methods to conceal and mix Bitcoins.

Probably not going to be good for the price of Bitcoin to be associated with something like this if it's as bad as the media makes it out to be but that is why it's good to be holding Steem right now.

References

1. https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/15/shadow-brokers-claim-to-be-selling-nsa-malware-in-what-could-be-historic-hack/