"Evidence Points To Another Snowden At The NSA"

Aug 22, 2016 9:48 AM

Last week, following the news that a previously unknown hacker collective, "The Shadow Brokers" had hacked and released legitimate hacking tools from the NSA's own special-ops entity, the "Equation Group", initial speculation that Russians may have penetrated the US spy agency - suggested by none other than Edward Snowden - shifted to the suggestion that the agency may be housing another "mole" insider. As we noted on Thursday, a former NSA source told Motherboard, that “it’s plausible” that the leakers are actually a disgruntled insider, claiming that it’s easier to walk out of the NSA with a USB drive or a CD than hack its servers. Michael Adams, an information security expert who served more than two decades in the US Special Operations Command, agreed that it’s a viable theory.

“It’s Snowden junior,” Adams told Motherboard. “Except he doesn’t want to end up in virtual prison in Russia. He’s smart enough to rip off shit, but also smart enough to be unidentifiable.”

Today, in an op-ed by cybersecurity expert, James Bamford, author of The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America, and columnist for Foreign Policy magazine, writes that this is increasingly looking as the most probable explanation, and that Russia had nothing to do with this latest - and most provocative yet - hack.

This is what he think is really going on behind the scenes, courtesy of Reuters.

Evidence points to another Snowden at the NSA

In the summer of 1972, state-of-the-art campaign spying consisted of amateur burglars, armed with duct tape and microphones, penetrating the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. Today, amateur burglars have been replaced by cyberspies, who penetrated the DNC armed with computers and sophisticated hacking tools.

Where the Watergate burglars came away empty-handed and in handcuffs, the modern- day cyber thieves walked away with tens of thousands of sensitive political documents and are still unidentified.

Now, in the latest twist, hacking tools themselves, likely stolen from the National Security Agency, are on the digital auction block. Once again, the usual suspects start with Russia – though there seems little evidence backing up the accusation.

In addition, if Russia had stolen the hacking tools, it would be senseless to publicize the theft, let alone put them up for sale. It would be like a safecracker stealing the combination to a bank vault and putting it on Facebook. Once revealed, companies and governments would patch their firewalls, just as the bank would change its combination.

A more logical explanation could also be insider theft. If that’s the case, it’s one more reason to question the usefulness of an agency that secretly collects private information on millions of Americans but can’t keep its most valuable data from being stolen, or as it appears in this case, being used against us.

In what appeared more like a Saturday Night Live skit than an act of cybercrime, a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers put up for bid on the Internet what it called a “full state-sponsored toolset” of “cyberweapons.” “!!! Attention government sponsors of cyberwarfare and those who profit from it !!!! How much would you pay for enemies cyberweapons?” said the announcement.

The group said it was releasing some NSA files for “free” and promised “better” ones to the highest bidder. However, those with loosing bids “Lose Lose,” it said, because they would not receive their money back. And should the total sum of the bids, in bitcoins, reach the equivalent of half a billion dollars, the group would make the whole lot public.