'Hacking' against the US can now be carried out with cyber weapons paid for by US taxpayers. Top secret NSA cyber tools emerged on internet in August 2016, available to everyone including ISIS. Have already been used to attack US businesses along with hospitals and other civilian targets worldwide. Officials say no question NSA insider removed the data-NY Times, 6/28/2017

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In August 2016, a group called Shadow Brokers announced it was auctioning off highly classified National Security Agency hacking tools. Since then, NSA's finest cyber weapons have been used to attack US entities:

6/28/2017, "Hacks [using NSA weapons] Raise Fear Over N.S.A.’s Hold on Cyberweapons," NY Times, by Nicole Perlroth and David E. Sanger 
 
"A series of escalating attacks using N.S.A. cyberweapons have hit hospitals, a nuclear site and American businesses. Now there is growing concern that United States intelligence agencies have rushed to create digital weapons that they cannot keep safe from adversaries or disable once they fall into the wrong hands....

Though the identities of the Shadow Brokers remain a mystery, former intelligence officials say there is no question from where the weapons came: a unit deep within the agency that was until recently called “Tailored Access Operations.”...

For the American spy agency, which has invested billions of [taxpayer] dollars developing an arsenal of weapons that have been used against the Iranian nuclear program, North Korea’s missile launches and Islamic State militants, what is unfolding across the world amounts to a digital nightmare. It was as if the Air Force lost some of its most sophisticated missiles and discovered an adversary was launching them against American allies — yet refused to respond, or even to acknowledge that the missiles were built for American use. 

Officials fret that the potential damage from the Shadow Brokers leaks could go much further, and the agency’s own weaponry could be used to destroy critical infrastructure in allied nations or in the United States....

In the past two months [2017], attackers have retrofitted the agency’s more recent weapons to steal credentials from American companies. Cybercriminals have used them to pilfer digital currency....

The [Tuesday, June 2017] attacks inflicted enormous collateral damage, taking down some 2,000 global targets in more than 65 countries, including Merck, the American drug giant, Maersk, the Danish shipping company, and Rosneft, the Russian state owned energy giant. The attack so crippled operations at a subsidiary of Federal Express that trading had to be briefly halted for FedEx stock....
 
Armed with the N.S.A.’s own tools, the limits are gone.

“We now have actors, like North Korea and segments of the Islamic State, who have access to N.S.A. tools who don’t care about economic and other ties between nation states,” said Jon Wellinghoff, the former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission."...

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Added:

11/12/2017, "Security Breach and Spilled Secrets Have Shaken the N.S.A. to Its Core," NY Times, Scott Shane, Nicole Perlroth, David E. Sanger 

"A serial leak of the agency’s cyberweapons has damaged morale, slowed intelligence operations and resulted in hacking attacks on businesses and civilians worldwide.... 

Current and former agency officials say the Shadow Brokers disclosures, which began in August 2016, have been catastrophic for the N.S.A., calling into question its ability to protect potent cyberweapons and its very value to national security. The agency regarded as the world’s leader in breaking into adversaries’ computer networks failed to protect its own.... 

The Snowden trauma led to the investment of millions of dollars in new technology and tougher rules to counter what the government calls the insider threat. But N.S.A. employees say that with thousands of employees pouring in and out of the gates, and the ability to store a library’s worth of data in a device that can fit on a key ring, it is impossible to prevent people from walking out with secrets....

Mr. Williams said it may be years before the “full fallout” of the Shadow Brokers breach is understood. Even the arrest of whoever is responsible for the leaks may not end them, he said — because the sophisticated perpetrators may have built a “dead man’s switch” to release all remaining files automatically upon their arrest.

“We’re obviously dealing with people who have operational security knowledge,” he said. “They have the whole law enforcement system and intelligence system after them. And they haven't been caught.""...

 
"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."... (8/21/2016, Reuters) 

(NY Times): "Long known mainly as an eavesdropping agency, the  

as an especially productive way to spy on foreign targets. The intelligence collection is often automated, with malware implants — computer code designed to find material of interest — left sitting on the targeted system for months or even years, sending files back to the N.S.A.

The same implant can be used for many purposes: to steal documents, tap into email, subtly change data or become the launching pad for an attack. T.A.O.’s most public success was an operation against Iran called Olympic Games, in which implants in the network of the Natanz nuclear plant caused centrifuges enriching uranium to self-destruct. The T.A.O. was also critical to attacks on the Islamic State and North Korea. 

It was this arsenal that the Shadow Brokers got hold of, and then began to release."...

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Additional Reuters source on NSA theft:

8/21/2016, "Commentary: Evidence points to another Snowden at the NSA," Reuters, James Bamford, commentary




 

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