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Former NSA Contractor May Have Stolen 75% of TAO's Elite Hacking Tools

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

Fnord666 writes:

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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @05:19PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @05:19PM (#464146)

    You're playing football on a baseball field.

    The problem isn't about piracy. The problem is what the recipient can do with that copy. The right people will be able to reverse engineer how the tools work to circumvent security systems.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @05:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @05:30PM (#464152)

    reverse engineer what? the tools are INTENDED to circumvent security systems. do you need to "reverse engineer" winamp to listen to an mp3?

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @05:46PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @05:46PM (#464166)
      You might, if you don't want it to quietly phone home and let AOL know you're listening to an mp3.

      If your copy of winamp came from the NSA, and you're listening to 'DJ Ayatollah - Death to the Great Satan America.mp3' on endless repeat, you might want to be very, very careful about it phoning home.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @07:09PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @07:09PM (#464218)

    You're playing football on a baseball field.

    Dr. Phil!