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The Shadow Brokers is the name used by an unidentified leak and publication persona that emerged in 2016 claiming to possess offensive cyber tools stolen from the Equation Group, a threat actor widely linked to the U.S. National Security Agency. The group first publicized an apparent auction of the material, released samples alongside encrypted archives, and later published additional dumps in 2017, including the widely cited “Lost in Translation” release. Security researchers broadly assessed the leaked tooling as authentic, highly sophisticated, and consistent with Equation Group tradecraft. The actor is best known for exposing exploit frameworks, implants, post-exploitation tooling, operational notes, and malware-building components spanning Windows, Linux, Unix-like systems, network exploitation, persistence, stealth, and post-compromise operations. Publicly leaked capabilities included SMB exploitation associated with EternalBlue and related exploit families, the DoublePulsar backdoor, the DanderSpritz post-exploitation framework, SWIFT-related operational material, and numerous tools for covert access, credential abuse, persistence, and defense evasion. The leaks also revealed operational techniques such as hiding backdoors, concealing control channels and utilities, deleting selected log records, and altering timestamps. The Shadow Brokers is not primarily documented as an intrusion operator conducting victim campaigns under that name, but as a leak actor whose publication of nation-state-grade offensive tooling materially lowered the barrier to advanced intrusion activity by others. The released material was rapidly repurposed across the threat landscape, including for ransomware propagation and wormable attacks. EternalBlue from the leaks was subsequently used in the WannaCry outbreak and later incorporated into other destructive or criminal campaigns such as NotPetya. The disclosures therefore had outsized downstream impact on global cybercrime and cyber conflict despite the group’s own operational identity remaining opaque. Attribution of the people behind the Shadow Brokers remains unresolved. No individual has been formally charged as the operator of the persona. Public theories have included involvement by a current or former insider with access to NSA material and, separately, the possibility that the persona functioned as a Russian intelligence-linked influence or information operation. Those theories remain unconfirmed. Known aliases include ShadowBrokers, shadow_brokers, shadow_brokers_(leak_publication), and The Shadow Brokers.
Mallory correlates actor tradecraft and target patterns against your stack, your sector, and your geography. See overlap before they land.
Who, where, and (when attributed) which flag flies behind the operation. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Sectors the actor has been observed targeting.
Geographies tied to known operations.
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
32 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
10 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
5 additional families tracked in Mallory.
3 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 3 of them exploited in the wild.
The new Petya variant appears to be using the MS17-010 Eternal Blue exploit to propagate... Others have confirmed this variant spreads over Windows SMB and is reportedly using the EternalBlue exploit tool, which exploits CVE-2017-0144.
CVE : CVE-2017-0146 Description : Exploits vulnerabilities in Microsoft SMB implementation. The vulnerability is described in CVE-2017-0146 and CVE-2017-0147. Both vulnerabilities were patched in MS17-010 update from March this year.
CVE : CVE-2017-0146 Description : Exploits vulnerabilities in Microsoft SMB implementation. The vulnerability is described in CVE-2017-0146 and CVE-2017-0147. Both vulnerabilities were patched in MS17-010 update from March this year.
57 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
20 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Leak and publication of offensive cyber tools, exploits, vulnerabilities, and operational notes allegedly stolen from the NSA, enabling broader repurposing of advanced capabilities including ransomware distribution.
Mysterious group that surfaced online offering stolen NSA/TAO hacking tools for sale, contributing to public exposure of TAO capabilities.
Released stolen NSA-linked offensive cyber tools, claimed to have breached the Equation Group, attempted to auction the tools, and later publicly dumped them, enabling downstream destructive attacks by other actors.
Enigmatic group that leaked a trove of hacking tools believed to belong to the NSA/Equation Group, likely using the release as a propaganda operation and public dump rather than a genuine auction.
Match sector + geo + tech-stack targeting against your real footprint.
Every observed MITRE ATT&CK technique, grouped by tactic.
Families this actor is known to deploy, with IOCs and behavior.
CVEs this actor has used in known campaigns.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Domains, IPs, and hashes tied to this actor, refreshed continuously.