hacking

A group of hackers called the Shadow Brokers has just released a new dump of data from the National Security Agency. This is plausibly the most extensive and important release of NSA hacking tools to date. It’s likely to prove awkward for the U.S. government, not only revealing top-secret information but also damaging the government’s relationships with U.S. allies and with big information technology firms. That is probably the motivation behind the leak: The Shadow Brokers are widely assumed to be connected with the Russian government. Read more about Hackers have just dumped a treasure trove of NSA data. Here’s what it means.

Obama administration security officials have formally accused Russia of interfering with the U.S. presidential election. The Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security made a joint statement, saying that ““[t]he U.S. intelligence community is confident that the Russian government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. Read more about The U.S. has just accused Russia of hacking America’s elections. That’s a very big deal.

In the presidential debate last week, Hillary Clinton cited Russia’s responsibility for the hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Read more about Risky Business: When Governments Do Not Attribute State-Sponsored Cyberattacks

When cyberattacks come from abroad, there’s special panic. We often imagine them to be the opening volleys of a cyberwar that could escalate into a kinetic war. For that reason, hacking back—or cyber-counterattacking—is presumed to be too dangerous to allow. Read more about Hacking Back Is Ethical in the Cyber Frontier