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Technology NSA

Hackers boast of hosting a ‘cyber weapons’ arms fair

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By John Glenday, Reporter

August 16, 2016 | 1 min read

A group of hackers calling themselves Shadow Brokers have raised alarm bells after they boasted of staging an online arms fair in which stolen surveillance tools linked to the US National Security Agency will be auctioned off.

In an effort to drum up interest in the sale, the hackers have teased a number of programs which they say are powerful enough to circumvent firewall software developed by the likes of Cisco Systems and Fortinet.

News of the planned auction first filtered out via a Tumblr blog operated by the hackers in which they claimed that auctioned materials would include ‘cyber weapons’ that are ‘better than Stuxnet’ -a widely reported malicious code used to sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme.

The Shadow Brokers claim that their material has been developed by the Equation Group who are believed to be an arm of the NSA, however the NSA declined to pass comment on the veracity of these reports.

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