Infamous hacking group, Shadow Brokers, cancelled its auction for the supposed NSA hacking tools after they realized that no one was bidding on the auction. In August, the Shadow Brokers took responsibility for stealing and exposing powerful cyber weapons from the servers of the Equation Group, an elite cyberattack team associated with the NSA, and is now threatening to release the password to anyone willing to pay 10,000 bitcoins ($6.3 million).
In a new attempt to reach its goal, the group recently posted, “The Shadow Brokers is being bored with auction so no more auction. Auction off. Auction finish. Auction done. No winners. So who is wanting password? The Shadow Brokers is publicly posting the password when receive 10,000 btc. Same bitcoin address, same file, password is crowdfunding. Sharing risk. Sharing reward. Everyone winning.” Security researchers are confident that the crowdfunded sale will fail, just as the auction did.
Experts have analyzed the NSA leaked data and believe the Russian government could be behind the Shadow Brokers. However, the FBI revealed that an NSA insider could have been involved.