What happened?

A group known only as the Shadow Brokers have breached the NSA’s cyber weapons arsenal exposing methods and tools previously unknown even to some of the agency’s own top operators.

Who are the Shadow Brokers?

The Shadow Brokers are hackers of unknown origin and organization. Their apparent level of sophistication increases the possibility that the Shadow Brokers are government funded or affiliated but that has not been confirmed according to recent reports from official investigations.

What are cyber weapons?

Cyber weapons are the highest grade, most capable hack tools available in the digital world. Much of the code utilizes unknown vulnerabilities that have yet to be patched by security software developers. While there are many hack tools available (some even compiled into open source projects such as Kali Linux), weapons grade hack tools have been created with a precision only achieved through well funded research and maximum secrecy.

What is the potential impact?

Malware releases like the Not Petya attack earlier this year have already caused catastrophic losses in revenue for industries around the world. That attack utilized the zero day EternalBlue exploit, originally discovered in secret but stolen from the NSA and then deployed through a Ukrainian tax firm’s software update. This one devastating example shows just how dangerous these types of exploits can be when farmed secretly and then suddenly released into the digital wild, leaving consumer and corporate networks open to vast and possibly undetected intrusions.