Computer Science Professor Gives Failing Grade to Newly Leaked NSA Hacking Tool

Stephen Checkoway, an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has analyzed some of the exploit code included in the recent Equation Group leak, and his verdict is "not impressed."

Over the past weekend, a person or group named The Shadow Brokers published a set of hacking tools they claim to have stolen from the Equation Group, a name given by security vendors to a cyber-espionage group believed to be linked to the US National Security Agency (NSA).

The hackers dumped a small sample of the tools so that security researchers can verify the dump's validity. The rest of the data is available in a password-protected encrypted archive.

The Shadow Brokers are currently holding an auction to sell the rest of the data to the highest bidder.

Infosec experts rush to analyze...