UPDATED 01:09 EDT / JUNE 30 2017

INFRA

Shadow Brokers demands more money for new NSA exploit releases

Notorious hacking group The Shadow Brokers is back in the news and absolutely not surprisingly for anyone who follows its exploits, it’s all about the money again.

The group, which is perhaps now most famous for releasing the National Security Agency-linked Windows exploits that were used in both the WannaCry and NotPetya attacks, is now asking for an increased payment for its monthly exploit subscription service. The new asking price comes in at 200 in Zcash ($65,000) or 1,000 in Monero ($46,000). The group had previously demanded a payment of 100 in Zcash, worth $24,000 at the time the NSA exploit subscription service was first offered.

“Another global cyber attack is fitting end for first month of theshadowbrokers dump service. There is much theshadowbrokers can be saying about this, but what is point and having not already being said? So to business!” the group wrote in its trademark poor English in a statement published on Steemit. “Time is still being left to make subscribe and getting June dump. Don’t be let company fall victim to next cyber attack, maybe losing big bonus or maybe price on stock options be going down after attack. June dump service is being great success for theshadowbrokers, many many subscribers, so in July theshadowbrokers is raising price.”

In addition to doubling the asking price for the dump service, the group also threatened to expose the identity of an NSA employee who it alleges has been involved in a cyberattack against an organization in China.

“TheShadowBrokers is having special invitation message for ‘doctor’ person theshadowbrokers is meeting on Twitter. ‘Doctor’ person is writing ugly tweets to theshadowbrokers not unusual but ‘doctor’ person is living in Hawaii and is sounding knowledgeable about theequationgroup,” the group added. “Then ‘doctor’ person is deleting ugly tweets, maybe too much drinking and tweeting? Is very strange, so theshadowbrokers is doing some digging. TheShadowBrokers is thinking ‘doctor’ person is former EquationGroup developer who built many tools and hacked organization in China.”

Who the “doctor” (not to be confused with a certain English television program) and NSA Equation Group employee may be is anyone’s guess. But attempting to blackmail the United States’ main spying organization will likely be looked upon quite poorly by those in government.

Image: Pixabay

Since you’re here …

… We’d like to tell you about our mission and how you can help us fulfill it. SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s business model is based on the intrinsic value of the content, not advertising. Unlike many online publications, we don’t have a paywall or run banner advertising, because we want to keep our journalism open, without influence or the need to chase traffic.The journalism, reporting and commentary on SiliconANGLE — along with live, unscripted video from our Silicon Valley studio and globe-trotting video teams at theCUBE — take a lot of hard work, time and money. Keeping the quality high requires the support of sponsors who are aligned with our vision of ad-free journalism content.

If you like the reporting, video interviews and other ad-free content here, please take a moment to check out a sample of the video content supported by our sponsors, tweet your support, and keep coming back to SiliconANGLE.