Snowden: NSA Equation Group hack may be the Kremlin’s warning

According to the popular whistleblower Edward Snowden, the hack of the NSA Equation Group may be a Russian response to the US.

The public auction of stolen NSA exploits and hacking tools may be the response of the Russian Government to the US Government, which is blaming it for the DNC hack.

This is also the opinion of the popular whistleblower Edward Snowden, who speculates that the hack of the Equation Group arsenal may be a warning to the US that blaming Russia for the DNC hack could have dramatic consequences.

Snowden expressed his opinion with a series of messages on Twitter:

Snowden seems to have no doubts; this is a clear message of the Kremlin to its adversary, the Russian cyber units have a deep knowledge of the NSA arsenal and are able to detect any attacks they are able to launch, even if they try to cover their activity with sophisticated tools.

“This leak looks like a somebody sending a message that an escalation in the attribution game could get messy fast,” Said Snowden. “This leak is likely a warning that someone can prove U.S. responsibility for any attacks that originated from this malware server.”

Snowden believes that hackers compromised a staging server used by the Equation Group to coordinate the attacks; it was not so difficult for the skilled Russian hackers.

Snowden added that the attackers lost access to the NSA server in June 2013, after he started disclosing the secret documents stolen from the US Intelligence Agency, likely because the NSA might have changed his hacking infrastructure as a security precaution in reaction to his leak.

The real element of innovation in this hack is the public disclosure of the hacking tools and other stolen material, it is a sort of public warning.

“This leak is likely a warning that someone can prove U.S. responsibility for any attacks that originated from this malware server,” Snowden writes. “That could have significant foreign policy consequences. Particularly if any of those operations targeted U.S. allies. Particularly if any of those operations targeted elections.”

What will happen now?

Does the NSA reply to the alleged Russian hack? Experts believe that the Russians could expose attacks that the NSA launched against other governments over the years, triggering several diplomatic crises.

[adrotate banner=”9″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – NSA’ Equation Group, ATP)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.