A group known as the Shadow Brokers published Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability on Good Friday a set of confidential hacking tools used by the NSA to exploit Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability software vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows software . According to Fortune , Microsoft announced Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability on the same day that it had patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability the vulnerabilities related to the NSA leak Attack.Databreach . It was especially important that the company moved quickly since juvenile hackers — also known as script kiddies — were expected to be active over the holiday weekend while defenders were away . The threat was the latest and , according to security experts , the most damaging set of stolen documents published Attack.Databreach by the Shadow Brokers , which is believed to be tied to the Russian government . Experts say Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability the leak , which was mostly lines of computer code , was made up of a variety of “ zero-day exploits ” that can infiltrate Windows machines and then be used for espionage , vandalism or document theft . The group also published Attack.Databreach another set of documents that show that the NSA penetrated the SWIFT banking network in the Middle East . “ There appears to be at least several dozen exploits , including zero-day vulnerabilities , in this release . Some of the exploits even offer a potential ‘ God mode ’ on select Windows systems . A few of the products targeted include Lotus Notes , Lotus Domino , IIS , SMB , Windows XP , Windows 8 , Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2012 , ” said Cris Thomas , a strategist at Tenable Network Security . The Shadow Brokers have been threatening the U.S. government for some time but until last Friday had not released anything critical . There is speculation that this document dump Attack.Databreach could be retaliation by Russia ( if the hackers are indeed tied to the country ) in response to recent U.S. military actions .

A hacker that goes by the nickname of Cipher0007 has hacked the Sanctuary Dark Web marketplace . The hacker announced the breach a few hours ago and also posted proof of his intrusion . According to Cipher0007 , the hack took place after he found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability an SQL injection flaw in the market 's database . The hacker claims Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability he used the SQL injection flaw to upload a shell on the market 's server . He then used this backdoor to access Attack.Databreach various parts of the backend and dumped Attack.Databreach the private key used to generate the market 's .onion URL . Cipher0007 also says he used the market 's phpMyAdmin installation to dump Attack.Databreach details on the database configuration and other login information . At the time of writing , the market 's phpMyAdmin login page was still exposed to external connections . To prove his claims , the hacker posted online a screengrab while uploading the shell to the Sanctuary market 's server , the market 's 1024 bit RSA private key , and the market 's root account database login information . The Sanctuary market is a small Dark Web market , and one of the few places where digital products such as data dumps , malware , and others , are far more prevalent than drugs and weapons . The admin of the Sanctuary market did not respond to a request for comment from Bleeping Computer in time for this article 's publication . Cipher0007 has a reputation in the hacking underground already . In January , the hacker collected an unspecified Bitcoin reward for reporting Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability a bug to the AlphaBay staff that would have allowed an attacker access to over 218,000 private messages . AlphaBay is today 's biggest Dark Web market , and access to those PMs would have allowed an attacker insight into the operations of many sellers and vendors .

The United States ’ National Security Agency has linked North Korea to the WannaCry ransomware attack Attack.Ransom that had affected more than 3,00,000 people worldwide in May , reported The Washington Post . The NSA analysed tactics , techniques and targets that suggest the Reconnaissance General Bureau , North Korea ’ s spy agency , was behind the attack . The assessment was issued internally last week and has not yet been made public . According to the assessment , the cyber actors , suspected to be sponsored by the RGB , were behind two versions of WannaCry . The Shadow Brokers , a hacking group believed to be behind a massive dump Attack.Databreach of National Security Agency cyber-weapons and software , were responsible for releasing the vulnerability in the computer systems used by government agencies and other companies . The vulnerability had led to WannaCry being able to replicate itself and causing massive damage internationally . The vulnerability was referred to by the NSA as “ EternalBlue ” . WannaCry is a malicious software that had crippled systems worldwide and affected more than 150 countries in a cyber attack in May . It had locked data on computers it struck , which could only be released after a paying a ransom Attack.Ransom in bitcoins . The major cyber attack had targeted several nations , bringing operations at hospitals , telecommunications firms and other companies to a halt .