The NSA Lost Control Of A Cyberweapon. Now It’s Being Used Against American Cities.

From The Daily Wire.com (May 27):

In 2017, the National Security Agency (NSA) lost control of some of the hacking tools it used “to spy on other countries,” The New York Times reported. The NSA, it appeared, had itself been hacked — or infiltrated:

Fifteen months into a wide-ranging investigation by the agency’s counterintelligence arm, known as Q Group, and the F.B.I., officials still do not know whether the N.S.A. is the victim of a brilliantly executed hack, with Russia as the most likely perpetrator, an insider’s leak, or both. Three employees have been arrested since 2015 for taking classified files, but there is fear that one or more leakers may still be in place. And there is broad agreement that the damage from the Shadow Brokers already far exceeds the harm to American intelligence done by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor who fled with four laptops of classified material in 2013.

Some of the tools appeared to have been obtained by a group called the Shadow Brokers, who went on to taunt the agency while disclosing information about highly classified operations.

Fast forward to today, and one of the stolen tools, known as EternalBlue, is being used to commit cyberattacks against major U.S. cities.

The Times reported Saturday that Baltimore and other cities have been targeted by “state hackers in North Korea, Russia and, more recently, China.” In Baltimore, hackers had “frozen thousands of computers, shut down email and disrupted real estate sales, water bills, health alerts and many other services.”

The computer screens of city workers would suddenly lock, the Times reported, and a message would appear demanding $100,000 in Bitcoin to unlock the screens. The message appeared in broken English, just like the messages from Shadow Brokers two years earlier. [read more]

Another article on cybersecurity:

• Our Adversaries Are Using Cyberwarfare. We Must Be Prepared.
• Hacking security alert issued for small planes, DHS warns modern flight systems are 'exploitable'
• Hackers could use self-driving cars to cause mayhem, study warns
• Could hackers steal your passwords just by LISTENING to you type? Security flaw in handsets lets hackers access your microphone