Shadow Brokers re-emerge, with NSA's secret exploits for sale

Having failed in its attempt to auction off a collection of hacking tools, implants and software exploits stolen from the NSA, the mysterious Shadow Brokers group are now offering them individually for sale on the web.

As Motherboard describes, a user calling themselves “Boceffus Cleetus” (which seems to be as likely to be their real name as mine being Dick Dastardly) posted an article on Medium that suggested he had stumbled across evidence that The Shadow Brokers were offering their stolen wares for sale on ZeroNet.

Well howdy partners! I don”t wanna be getting arrested for passing on fake news and all. I rekon I ain”t no security professional but I am whutcha might call a ZeroNet enthusiast. I figured y”all might enjoy something I found on the ole Zero Nets. Those dastardly ole shadow brokers have themselves a zite on ZeroNet. Yep and fars as I can tell they appears to be sellin NSA tools individually now.

Prices range between 1 and 100 bitcoins (US $780 to $78,000), or you can choose to purchase the entire package for 1000 bitcoins (an eye-watering $780,000)

In late August, the US authorities charged NSA contractor Hal Martin with the alleged theft of a huge quantity of classified information over the course of 20 years, and it has been claimed that. although no conclusive evidence has been found, he is a prime suspect in the distribution of the NSA’s hacking tools by The Shadow Brokers.

If that’s true, then Martin does not appear to have been working in isolation as messages from the group continue to be posted even while Martin is detained by the authorities.

Leaked data has in the past revealed a list of organisations targeted by the NSA, and even zero-day exploit code for firewall hardware built by the likes of Cisco, Huawei, and Fortinet.

For instance, in September Cisco revealed that it had found exploit code targeting a zero-day vulnerability in its technology amid a data dump released by The Shadow Brokers, allegedly containing hacking tools stolen from the NSA-linked Equation Group.

Whether The Shadow Brokers will find buyers for the stolen NSA hacking tools remains to be seen. What is certain is that US law enforcement will be taking a very dim view of the hacking group’s antics, and will be hoping that the gang makes a mistake, and reveals information which leads to their identification.