Hacking group Shadow Brokers has released a data dump allegedly stolen from the NSA detailing the agency's ability to hack worldwide banks, including the SWIFT network, via Windows PCs and servers used for global financial transfers.
The NSA could not immediately be reached for comment.
However EastNets, which is based in Dubai, denied it had been hacked in a statement, and said the assertion was "totally false and unfounded".
Hackers compromised the system in March 2016 - stealing the computer credentials of a SWIFT operator in Bangladesh -to send messages to the Federal Reserve Bank of NY that resulted in the theft of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank. SWIFT stated that there was no indication that their main network had been accessed by unauthorized users. We asked Microsoft if the NSA at any point offered to provide information that would help protect Windows users from these attacks, given that the leak has been threatened since August 2016, to which they replied "our focus at this time is reviewing the current report".
As Microsoft mention in the blog post, it has already patched most of the exploits released by the hacker group, which means you're safe to use any version of Windows 7 and above.
Today, an internet hacking collective called The Shadow Brokers dumped a giant pile of what they claim are NSA hacking tools that target Windows machines online.
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The Shadow Brokers Friday released small batches of cyberweapons related to the Equation Group - the alleged hacking arm of the National Security Agency (NSA) - after a failed auction but experts had been unimpressed with the data in the past. That theory is consistent with Friday's release of other exploits that remained unpatched in unsupported Microsoft products including Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Exchange 2007, and IIS 6.0.
Swift is a global network that enables banks and other financial institutions to share transaction details in a standardised, secure environment, used by banks to transfer trillions of dollars every day. But Microsoft, which initially stated only that it was investigating the matter, added on late Friday night that it already patched most of the vulnerabilities.
If the files are real, the exposed information represents a threat to the SWIFT network, said Matt Suiche, founder of security firm Comae Technologies, who has been looking over the leaked files.
EastNets ran a "complete check of its servers and found no hacker compromise or any vulnerabilities", according to a statement from EastNets' chief executive and founder, Hazem Mulhim.
The NSA has previously shown interest in targeting SWIFT, according to documents leaked by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
Microsoft appears to be taking the news seriously. Microsoft itself claims that no organization or individual aside from reporters has contacted the company in regard to the Shadow Brokers' leak.
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