WASHINGTON,(MILLAT ONLINE/APP/AFP) – Files released
by the mysterious hacker Shadow Brokers suggested Friday the US National Security Agency had penetrated the SWIFT banking network and monitored a number of Middle East banks.
The files, according to computer security analysts, also showed the NSA had found and exploited numerous vulnerabilities in a range of Microsoft Windows products widely used on computers around the world.
Analysts generally accepted the files, which show someone exploiting
so-called “zero-day” or hitherto unknown vulnerabilities in common software and hardware, came from the NSA.
They are believed stolen from a hyper-secret hacking unit dubbed the
“Equation Group” at the key US signals intelligence agency.
“The tools and exploits released today have been specifically designed to target earlier versions of Windows operating system,” said security specialist Pierluigi Paganini on the Security Affairs website.
They “suggest the NSA was targeting the SWIFT banking system of several banks around the world.”
The files appear to indicate that the NSA had infiltrated two of SWIFT’s service bureaus, including EastNets, which provides technology services in the Middle East for the Belgium-based SWIFT and for individual financial institutions.
Via that entry point the agency appears to have monitored transactions involving several banks and financial institutions in Kuwait, Dubai, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen and Qatar.