It appears The Shadow Brokers are not done with their exploit sharing just yet. In fact, the group has announced a monthly dump service, which would give members access to more NSA hacking tools. It is evident the group aims to capitalize on the success of ransomware and malware attacks using NSA tools. Selling this information has proven to be quite difficult, thus a monthly service makes a lot of sense.
A Monthly Dump Service For NSA Tools
The Shadow Brokers have been trying to make a name for themselves over the past year or so. When the group first announced they had successfully hacked the NSA, a lot of people started paying attention to what they had to say. At first, they aimed to sell off their information to the highest bidder through a Bitcoin auction. That venture eventually failed, though.
A second attempt was made to sell the obtained NSA tools to the highest bidders, yet that auction was hardly taken seriously by interested parties. The only remaining course of action for The Shadow Brokers was to dump some exploits without receiving a payment. They have done exactly that, which resulted in the recent WannaCry ransomware and SMB worm attacks.
Now that The Shadow Brokers have shown the world what they actually possess, the group is looking to capitalize on the momentum once again. More specifically, they will provide a monthly dump service, which gives clients access to NSA exploits not made public at this time. Among the tools one can find browser and router exploits, compromised network data, and much more. It is certainly possible a lot of cybercriminals will look forward to this monthly membership.
Subscribing to The Shadow Brokers’ service can be done by sending 100 ZCash to the address provided in the group’s message. Do keep in mind users will have until June 30th to make the associated payment. At the time of writing, 100 ZCash equals to roughly 10.7 Bitcoin, worth just under US$25,000. This is not a small membership fee by any means, but the group aims to justify that price by providing extremely valuable information.
It is quite interesting to see The Shadow Brokers are not interested in accepting Bitcoin directly anymore. That is not surprising by any means, as ZCash provides a lot more privacy and anonymity when making payments. It will be interesting to see if this has a positive impact on the ZCash price, considering there aren’t that many coins – 1.413 million – in circulation at this point.
While this offer may sound enticing to internet criminals, it is important to remember The Shadow Brokers may not have access to new exploits by any means. Then again, it is unclear how many exploits they have obtained during the initial NSA hack. It is evident the group is looking to make money, and this monthly subscription may yield some positive results.
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