The leak of a number of malicious programs and exploits in 2016 was a serious shock for the US National Security Agency. The actions of the hacker group The Shadow Brokers called into question the agency's competence in matters of cybersecurity, the New York Times reports with reference to its sources.

According to Jake Williams, a former employee of the TBA in the Tailored Access Operations (TAO), despite all the efforts of law enforcement agencies and intelligence services, the guilty of the leak have so far not been found. The level of awareness of hackers about the activities of the NSA was higher than that of many TAO employees, Williams noted.. Hackers were either high-level insiders, or they managed to steal a very large amount of operational data, he added..

The Shadow Brokers - hacker group, which first became known in the summer of 2016. The group is known for the publication of exploits and hacking tools NSA. Announced by cybercriminals in April 2017, the exploit of the NSA EternalBlue for vulnerability in the SMB protocol was used to spread the extortion software WannaCry and NotPetya, which caused the malfunction of hundreds of thousands of computers around the world. The Shadow Brokers actions called into question the agency's competence in matters of national security due to the inability of the NSA to protect powerful cyber weapons. The special service, which is considered the world leader in hacking computer networks, could not protect its own systems.

As noted by the publication, the damage from the attacks of The Shadow Brokers may be more serious than from the revelations of the former contractor of the CIA and the NSA Edward Snowden, who disclosed information about the programs of special services for mass surveillance. Unlike Snowden, The Shadow Brokers published the source code of these programs on the Web.

At the headquarters of the agency in Maryland and in offices around the country, many NSA employees were subjected to polygraph checks and suspended from work in the search for "traitors" associated with The Shadow Brokers. Most of the arsenal of the agency had to be replaced, which affected the number of operations. Experienced specialists left the agency in search of more highly paid work, including in firms that protect computer networks from attacks using stolen NSA instruments. According to Williams, even after 15 months of investigation by the NSA and the FBI, they did not identify the persons involved in the hacking.

The NSA did not comment on the situation at all.