They're Back: The Shadow Brokers Release More Alleged Exploits

They're back.

On Saturday, The Shadow Brokers, a hacker or group of hackers that has previously dumped NSA hacking tools, released more alleged exploits. The group published a password for an encrypted cache of files they distributed last year.

"Be considering this our form of protest," the group wrote in a rambling, politically loaded rant published on Medium.

Back in August, The Shadow Brokers released a number of exploits stolen from the NSA. Many of these affected hardware firewalls, from companies such as Cisco and Juniper. At the time, the group also dumped another cache allegedly containing more hacking tools, and said they would release the corresponding password to the winner of a bitcoin auction.

That fund-raising effort was ultimately unsuccessful, and The Shadow Brokers claimed they were calling the whole thing off in January. But now, anyone can unlock the auction data dump. (Motherboard confirmed that the password did indeed decrypt the original auction file).

According to the researcher known as x0rz, the cache includes an exploit for Solaris, a Unix based operating system.

The Shadow Brokers' posts have clearly become more political since the group first emerged. This time, they pointed specifically to President Trump.

"Respectfully, what the fuck are you doing?" the group writes. "TheShadowBrokers voted for you. TheShadowBrokers supports you. TheShadowBrokers is losing faith in you. Mr. Trump helping theshadowbrokers, helping you. Is appearing you are abandoning "your base", "the movement", and the peoples who getting you elected."

The post also highlights several recent events, such as Steve Bannon's removal from the National Security Council, and the US missile strike against a Syrian military base earlier this week.

The Shadow Brokers did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the group previously told Motherboard, "TheShadowBrokers is not being irresponsible criminals."