Ghost hackers: the cybersecurity mystery that nobody has solved; plus, Iranian hackers blamed for breach of LA transit system
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In the long history of hacking, there have been numerous data breaches that, years or even decades later, remain unsolved. Countless hackers and hacking groups behind them have never been unmasked. But prolific hacking groups do get caught. And this is true whether they're cyber criminals such as Lapsus, a notorious extortion gang that compromised companies such as Microsoft and NVIDIA. and that have had multiple members arrested, or sophisticated government hacking groups from Russia and China, whose members have been named, indicted, and placed on most wanted lists. Still, some of the most fascinating cases in cybersecurity history remain wide open. No culprits, no answers, and in some cases, not even a clear motive.
So TechCrunch decided to revisit several of them in a series of articles, starting with one of the strangest episodes in the history of intelligence leaks. The first installment centers on the Shadow Brokers, an enigmatic group that surfaced online, dumped a trove of hacking tools believed to belong to the NSA. And then vanished. So in the summer of twenty sixteen, in the midst of the Russian hacks related to the US presidential elections, the group appeared on Twitter. They linked to a pastebend post and at mentioned several news outlets, a strange and effective strategy that meant most of those outlets likely never saw the tweets. But if anyone had clicked on the link, they would have seen a document titled Equation Group Cyber Weapons Auction.
Invitation. A reference to the shadowy hacking operation widely believed to be run by the NSA. The hackers wrote, claiming to have hacked the equation group, attention, government sponsors of cyber warfare and those who profit from it. How much you pay for enemies' cyber weapons. Now, the document included links to download some hacking tools, as well as a link to download an encrypted file that interested buyers could decrypt by making a bid. They wrote auction files better than stucks net, referring to the famous malware used against Iranian nuclear facilities in a US Israeli cyber attack in two thousand seven. They asked for at least one million Bitcoin. The leak quickly attracted press coverage, and once security researchers analyzed the tools, well, they realized these were exceptionally sophisticated cyberweapons, very likely stolen from the NSA, a suspicion bolstered by the fact that some shared names with programs revealed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The auction was likely a ruse since the group eventually dumped many of the tools publicly months later. Much about the shadow brokers made little sense. Their broken English was almost comical, as if they were either trying too hard or deliberately signaling the artifice. Despite clearly seeking attention and getting plenty of press coverage, the group only spoke to a journalist once, giving a brief interview to four hundred four media's Joseph Cox, then a reporter at Vice Motherboard. Ten years later, we know literally nothing about who was behind the Shadow Broker's persona. Now there was a thought that an NSA insider or former insider could be involved, but nobody has ever been arrested and charged.
Extraordinary, given this was arguably one of the worst leaks of U.S. intelligence hacking tools ever. Now, one potential suspect was Harold T. Martin III, an NSA contractor arrested for stealing classified information from the agency.
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