A Brief Interview with The Shadow Brokers, The Hackers Selling NSA Exploits

In August, a group calling themselves The Shadow Brokers publicly released a cache of NSA hacking tools, and promised to sell more. After a failed crowd-funding and auction attempt, the group now appears to be offering a wealth of trojans, exploits, and implants directly to potential customers. Since August, Motherboard has attempted to contact The Shadow Brokers through various different channels. On Thursday, the group replied.

Read the full interview on Motherboard

Oft-Neglected Cost Drivers of Cyber Weapons

Max Smeets’ take on the cost of cyber weapons is a thoughtful piece about the economics of cyber warfare, and the article is a useful point of departure on this topic. However, a few additional points not discussed by Smeets are worth considering, and they all point in the direction of higher costs that his piece might predict.

Read the full article on the true cost of cyber weapons on the Council on Foreign Relations

Newly Uncovered Site Suggests NSA Exploits for Direct Sale

The Shadow Brokers—a hacker or group of hackers that stole computer exploits from the National Security Agency—has been quiet for some time. After their auction and crowd-funded approach for selling the exploits met a lukewarm reception, the group seemingly stopped posting new messages in October. But a newly uncovered website, which includes a file apparently signed with The Shadow Brokers’ cryptographic key, suggests the group is trying to sell hacking tools directly to buyers one by one, and a cache of files appears to include more information on specific exploits.

Read more on Motherboard

Twin zero-day attacks: PROMETHIUM and NEODYMIUM target individuals in Europe

Targeted attacks are typically carried out against individuals to obtain intellectual property and other valuable data from target organizations. These individuals are either directly in possession of the targeted information or are able to connect to networks where the information resides. Microsoft researchers have encountered twin threat activity groups that appear to target individuals for reasons that are quite uncommon.

Read the full article on Microsoft’s Threat Research & Response blog

The rising use of personal identities in the workplace

90% of enterprise IT professionals are concerned that employee reuse of personal credentials for work purposes could compromise security. However, with 68% saying they would be comfortable allowing employees to use their social media credentials on company resources, Gemalto’s research suggests that personal applications (such as email) are the biggest worry to organisations.