Huge leaks of data from US organisations have been attributed by some to Russia, so has the former Soviet state launched cyberwar on the US elections?
Hacking tools allegedly developed by the US National Security Agency (NSA) were dumped online by a group calling itself Shadow Brokers. It follows a string of recent leaks of data from the Democratic National Committee (DNC). There are also now suspicions that the Clinton Foundation, a charitable body, may have been targeted.
Is this part of a Russian campaign to damage the US and even influence the presidential election in November, or are things a little more complicated than that?
What is in the latest leak?
Analysis of the files released by Shadow Brokers has revealed a group of malware that can be used to hack US-made firewalls and routers. Indeed, the tech firms Cisco and Fortinet have warned customers that there are some serious exploits in the dump that affect their products.
Juniper Networks has also said it is reviewing the data to see if its devices are affected. There are fears that some of the exploits were “zero-day” vulnerabilities, meaning they had gone undetected.
The hacking tools are believed to belong to a group of malware developed by “The Equation Group”, which was first revealed by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky in 2015.
