Shadow Brokers, the group behind last year’s release of hacking exploits allegedly used by the National Security Agency, has dropped another trove of files. In a Medium post today, the hacker group offered up a password giving free access to files it had previously tried to auction off.
The Shadow Brokers first came to prominence last August when they leaked exploits linked to the NSA and the Equation Group containing vulnerabilities in major firewall products. The group would later release a list of IP addresses it claimed were compromised by the Equation Group.
Shadow Brokers was hoping to auction off another set of files, but didn’t attract very much interest — or Bitcoin — in the attempt. After that failed, the group posted a “farewell message” in January and leaked a new set of Windows-related vulnerabilities.
Today’s leak from the Shadow Brokers comes with a lengthy Medium post, in which the group says it is releasing the files as a “form of protest” after losing faith in the leadership of President Donald Trump. Claiming that Trump appears to be “abandoning his base,” the post also offers a list of suggestions for how the president could “Make America Great Again.”
Security researchers are still going through the files, but many of the exploits appear to be used for attacking older or little-used systems. And at least one guy thinks this leak might lead to the unmasking of the hackers:
…much here that NSA should be able to instantly identify where this set came from and how they lost it. If they can't, it's a scandal.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 8, 2017
