‘Hackers stole NSA secrets from home computer subcontractor’

According to the WSJ, secret documents from the American intelligence service NSA were once again stolen via the home computer of a subcontractor. It would be details of how the NSA penetrates networks.

The hack of the subcontractor’s home computer took place in 2015, but would not have been discovered until the spring of this year. WSJ sources reported the incident to the newspaper. Among the stolen material would be details of how the NSA penetrates networks abroad, what code it uses for espionage, and how it protects networks in the US.

It is the third time the NSA has lost classified documents through a subcontractor. In 2013, Edward Snowden, employee of Booz Allen Hamilton, who works for the NSA, himself released intelligence documents. At the beginning of this year, it was announced that Harold Martin, also working for the NSA through Booz Allen Hamilton, took large amounts of classified material home for years, after which part of it was released through the Shadowbrokers group.

The WSJ writes that the hackers of the new case of theft were working on behalf of the Russian government. They allegedly managed to locate the documents on the computer through Kaspersky security software. The paper cites experts who claim the security suite may have identified NSA data as potentially malicious code. The WSJ makes the link with the US government’s ban on using Kaspersky for government services any longer.

Kaspersky denies any involvement and speaks of a new example of false accusations. The company’s chief executive, Eugene Kaspersky, speaks of “conspiracy theories from anonymous media sources”: “Note that we do not apologize for being aggressive in the fight against cyber threats.”