A group called Shadow Brokers had leaked 2017 with a set of hacking tools, which led to huge security breaches around the world, including ransomware WannaCry attacks.
The team he claimed to have stolen the tools by the National Security Service of USA (NSA), but it was a mystery exactly how were found in their hands. Now one Symantec's report revealed that the source might have been Chinese agents who took the tools while the NSA attacked their computers.
Symantec found that the Buckeye group (a code name for a Guangzhou-based contractor working for China's Ministry of State Security) used the stolen NSA tools at least a year before leakage των Shadow Brokers. Η Symantec πιστεύει ότι το Buckeye group απέσπασε τα εργαλεία κατά τη διάρκεια μιας επίθεσης της NSA και στη συνέχεια τα χρησιμοποίησαν για να φτιάξουν τη δική τους έκδοση.
And it is easy for the Buckeye group to be able to get the tools out, since according to one an article by The New York Times, the NSA considers the group one of the most dangerous. The Buckeye group was tasked with attacking American manufacturers technologyof space and to the manufacturers of satellites and nuclear propulsion.
If indeed the source of the Shadow Brokers was the Buckeye group, then that group was also indirectly responsible for them attacks carried out by North Korean and Russian hackers who used the reformulated tools to carry out attacks. The North Koreans struck the UK National Health Service and influenced vaccine supplies and Russian hackers have suppressed critical Ukrainian services, including the postal system, airports and ATMs.
Eric Chien, a Symantec security advisor, told The New York Times that it is now time for America to seriously consider the possibility that its enemies can record and reform America's hacking tools when they are attacking. In short, America's enemies can use these tools, paid by US taxpayers, to attack US networks and infrastructures.
However, Symantec has found no evidence that the Buckeye team used the NSA tools against the NSA. The company believes that logically the team thought the NSA would have already developed defense against its own weapons.
