NSA Hack Attacks: Good Value For Money?

Leaked operations manual reveals NSA attack techniques that are not significantly better than common cybercrime capabilities, despite their high cost to government

Do the National Security Agency's online espionage capabilities provide good value for money?

Recent reports have disclosed that the NSA uses a fleet of high-latency -- codenamed "Quantum" -- servers to redirect targeted systems to another fleet of servers, codenamed "FoxAcid," that launch tailored drive-by attacks. The agency's malware reportedly targets a range of vulnerabilities, from publicly known flaws to zero-day bugs that only the NSA possesses.

That information comes via former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's leak of top secret documents that detail many of the agency's operating practices. What's struck some information security experts is just how similar the NSA's techniques are to those of cybercrime gangs and advanced persistent attack (APT) groups sponsored or run by other nations.

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