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posted by on Tuesday February 07 2017, @03:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-borrowed-for-a-while dept.

On Monday, The Washington Post reported one of the most stunning breaches of security ever. A former NSA contractor, the paper said, stole more than 50 terabytes of highly sensitive data. According to one source, that includes more than 75 percent of the hacking tools belonging to the Tailored Access Operations. TAO is an elite hacking unit that develops and deploys some of the world's most sophisticated software exploits.

Attorneys representing Harold T. Martin III have previously portrayed the former NSA contractor as a patriot who took NSA materials home so that he could become better at his job. Meanwhile, investigators who have combed through his home in Glen Burnie, Maryland, remain concerned that he passed the weaponized hacking tools to enemies. The theft came to light during the investigation of a series of NSA-developed exploits that were mysteriously published online by a group calling itself Shadow Brokers.

[...] An unnamed US official told the paper that Martin allegedly hoarded more than 75 percent of the TAO's library of hacking tools. It's hard to envision a scenario under which a theft of that much classified material by a single individual would be possible.

Source:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/former-nsa-contractor-may-have-stolen-75-of-taos-elite-hacking-tools/


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @07:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @07:16PM (#464221)

    This guy never stole any hacking tools.

    Actually he did. You have to think "outside the box". "Stole" is a different concept here. If you own a specialized software tool and its IP, you're the only one who has it and has the power to do whatever you need done with it. If someone copies it, they too now have that power.

    The problem is not the software being copied- it's the theft of the unique power it gives.

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