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This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
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| Abbreviation | TAO |
|---|---|
| Formation | c. 1997–2001[1] |
| Headquarters | Fort Meade |
Region served | United States |
Official language | English |
Parent organization | S3 Data Acquisition |
 National Security Agency surveillance |
|---|
 |
The Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO), structured as S32,[1] is a cyberwarfare intelligence-gathering unit of the National Security Agency (NSA).[2] It has been active since at least 1998, possibly 1997, but was not named or structured as TAO until "the last days of 2000," according to General Michael Hayden.[3][4][5]
TAO identifies, monitors, infiltrates, and gathers intelligence on computer systems being used by entities foreign to the United States.[6][7][8][9]
TAO is reportedly "the largest and arguably the most important component of the NSA's huge Signals Intelligence Directorate (SID),[10] consisting of more than 1,000 military and civilian computer hackers, intelligence analysts, targeting specialists, computer hardware and software designers, and electrical engineers. The office is currently known as Office of Computer Network Operations (OCNO)."[4]
A document leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden describing the unit's work says TAO has software templates allowing it to break into commonly used hardware, including "routers, switches, and firewalls from multiple product vendor lines".[11] TAO engineers prefer to tap networks rather than isolated computers, because there are typically many devices on a single network.[11]
TAO's headquarters are termed the Remote Operations Center (ROC) and are based at the NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland. TAO has expanded to NSA Hawaii (Wahiawa, Oahu), NSA Georgia (Fort Gordon, Georgia), NSA Texas (Joint Base San Antonio, Texas), and NSA Colorado (Buckley Space Force Base, Denver).[4]
Details[17] on a program titled QUANTUMSQUIRREL indicate NSA ability to masquerade as any routable IPv4 or IPv6 host.[18] This enables an NSA computer to generate false geographical location and personal identification credentials when accessing the Internet utilizing QUANTUMSQUIRREL.[19]
From 2013 to 2017,[20] the head of TAO was Rob Joyce, a longtime employee who had previously worked in the NSA's Information Assurance Directorate (IAD). In January 2016, Joyce made a rare public appearance, giving a presentation at the Usenix’s Enigma conference.[21]
The NSA ANT catalog is a fifty-page classified document listing technology available to the United States National Security Agency (NSA) Tailored Access Operations (TAO) by the Advanced Network Technology (ANT) Division to aid in cyber surveillance. Most devices are described as already operational and available to US nationals and members of the Five Eyes alliance. According to Der Spiegel, which released the catalog to the public on December 30, 2013, "The list reads like a mail-order catalog, one from which other NSA employees can order technologies from the ANT division for tapping their targets' data." The document was created in 2008.[22] Security researcher Jacob Appelbaum gave a speech at the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg, Germany, in which he detailed techniques that the simultaneously published Der Spiegel article he coauthored disclosed from the catalog.[22]
The TAO has developed an attack suite they call QUANTUM. It relies on a compromised router that duplicates internet traffic, typically HTTP requests, so that they go both to the intended target and to an NSA site (indirectly). The NSA site runs FOXACID software, which sends back exploits that load in the background in the target web browser before the intended destination has had a chance to respond, although it is unclear whether the compromised router facilitates this race on the return trip. Prior to the development of this technology, FOXACID software made spear-phishing attacks the NSA referred to as spam. If the browser is exploitable, further permanent "implants" (rootkits, etc.) are deployed in the target computer; e.g., OLYMPUSFIRE for Windows, which gives complete remote access to the infected machine.[23] This type of attack is part of the man-in-the-middle attack family, though more specifically it is called man-on-the-side attack. It is difficult to execute without controlling some of the Internet backbone.[24]
There are numerous services that FOXACID can exploit this way. The names of some FOXACID modules are given below:[25]
By collaboration with the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) (MUSCULAR), Google services could be attacked too, including Gmail.[25]
Finding machines that are exploitable and worth attacking is done using analytic databases such as XKeyscore.[26] A specific method of finding vulnerable machines is interception of Windows Error Reporting traffic, which is logged into XKeyscore.[27]
QUANTUM attacks launched from NSA sites can be too slow for some combinations of targets and services as they essentially try to exploit a race condition, i.e. the NSA server is trying to beat the legitimate server with its response.[28] As of mid-2011, the NSA was prototyping a capability codenamed QFIRE, which involved embedding their exploit-dispensing servers in virtual machines (running on VMware ESX) hosted closer to the target, in the so-called Special Collection Sites (SCS) network worldwide. The goal of QFIRE was to lower the latency of the spoofed response, thus increasing the probability of success.[29]
COMMENDEER [sic] is used to commandeer (i.e. compromise) untargeted computer systems. The software is used as a part of QUANTUMNATION, which also includes the software vulnerability scanner VALIDATOR. The tool was first described at the 2014 Chaos Communication Congress by Jacob Appelbaum, who characterized it as tyrannical.[30][31][32]
QUANTUMCOOKIE is a more complex form of attack which can be used against Tor users.[33]
Suspected, alleged and confirmed targets of the Tailored Access Operations unit include national and international entities like China,[4] Northwestern Polytechnical University,[34] OPEC,[35] and Mexico's Secretariat of Public Security.[27]
The group has also targeted global communication networks via SEA-ME-WE 4 – an optical fibre submarine communications cable system that carries telecommunications between Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Egypt, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria and France.[31] Additionally, Försvarets radioanstalt (FRA) in Sweden gives access to fiber optic links for QUANTUM cooperation.[36][37]
TAO's QUANTUM INSERT technology was passed to UK services, particularly to GCHQ's MyNOC, which used it to target Belgacom and GPRS roaming exchange (GRX) providers like the Comfone, Syniverse, and Starhome.[27] Belgacom, which provides services to the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council discovered the attack.[38]
In concert with the CIA and FBI, TAO is used to intercept laptops purchased online, divert them to secret warehouses where spyware and hardware is installed, and send them on to customers.[39] TAO has also targeted Tor and Firefox.[24]
According to a 2013 article in Foreign Policy, TAO has become "increasingly accomplished at its mission, thanks in part to the high-level cooperation it secretly receives from the 'big three' American telecom companies (AT&T, Verizon and Sprint), most of the large US-based Internet service providers, and many of the top computer security software manufacturers and consulting companies."[40] A 2012 TAO budget document claims that these companies, on TAO's behest, "insert vulnerabilities into commercial encryption systems, IT systems, networks and endpoint communications devices used by targets".[40] A number of US companies, including Cisco and Dell, have subsequently made public statements denying that they insert such back doors into their products.[41] Microsoft provides advance warning to the NSA of vulnerabilities it knows about, before fixes or information about these vulnerabilities is available to the public; this enables TAO to execute so-called zero-day attacks.[42] A Microsoft official who declined to be identified in the press confirmed that this is indeed the case, but said that Microsoft cannot be held responsible for how the NSA uses this advance information.[43]
| Type | Advanced persistent threat |
|---|---|
| Products |
The Equation Group is a threat actor that has been linked by security researchers to the National Security Agency (NSA) and its Tailored Access Operations (TAO) unit.[44][45] Kaspersky Lab described the group in 2015 as one of the most advanced advanced persistent threats it had investigated, and reported similarities between its activities and those associated with the developers of Stuxnet and Flame.[46][47] Reported targets of the group have included entities in Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Syria, and Mali.[47]
The name originated from the group's extensive use of encryption. By 2015, Kaspersky documented 500 malware infections by the group in at least 42 countries, while acknowledging that the actual number could be in the tens of thousands due to its self-terminating protocol.[47][48]
In 2017, WikiLeaks published a discussion held within the CIA on how it had been possible to identify the group.[49] One commenter wrote that "the Equation Group as labeled in the report does not relate to a specific group but rather a collection of tools" used for hacking.[50]
In 2015 Kaspersky's research findings on the Equation Group noted that its loader, "GrayFish", had similarities to a previously discovered loader, "Gauss",[repository] from another attack series, and separately noted that the Equation Group used two zero-day attacks later used in Stuxnet; the researchers concluded that "the similar type of usage of both exploits together in different computer worms, at around the same time, indicates that the EQUATION group and the Stuxnet developers are either the same or working closely together".[51]: 13
The NSA codewords "STRAITACID" and "STRAITSHOOTER" have been found inside the malware. In addition, timestamps in the malware seem to indicate that the programmers worked overwhelmingly Monday–Friday in what would correspond to an 08:00–17:00 (8:00 AM - 5:00 PM) workday in an Eastern United States time zone.[52]
F-Secure claims that the Equation Group's malicious hard drive firmware is TAO program "IRATEMONK",[53] one of the items from the NSA ANT catalog exposed in a 2013 Der Spiegel article. IRATEMONK provides the attacker with the ability to have their software application persistently installed on desktop and laptop computers, despite the disk being formatted, its data erased or the operating system re-installed. It infects the hard drive firmware, which in turn adds instructions to the disk's master boot record that causes the software to install each time the computer is booted up.[54] It is capable of infecting certain hard drives from Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital, Samsung,[54] IBM, Micron Technology and Toshiba.[46]
In August 2016, a hacking group calling itself "The Shadow Brokers" announced that it had stolen malware code from the Equation Group.[55] Kaspersky Lab noticed similarities between the stolen code and earlier known code from the Equation Group malware samples it had in its possession including quirks unique to the Equation Group's way of implementing the RC6 encryption algorithm, and therefore concluded that this announcement is legitimate.[56] The most recent dates of the stolen files are from June 2013, thus prompting Edward Snowden to speculate that a likely lockdown resulting from his leak of the NSA's global and domestic surveillance efforts stopped The Shadow Brokers' breach of the Equation Group. Exploits against Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances and Fortinet's firewalls were featured in some malware samples released by The Shadow Brokers.[57] EXTRABACON, a Simple Network Management Protocol exploit against Cisco's ASA software, was a zero-day exploit as of the time of the announcement.[57] Juniper also confirmed that its NetScreen firewalls were affected.[58] The EternalBlue exploit was used to conduct the damaging worldwide WannaCry ransomware attack.
In 2022, an investigation conducted by the Chinese National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CVERC) and computer security firm Qihoo 360 attributed an extensive cyber attack on China's Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) to the NSA's Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO),[45][59] compromising tens of thousands of network devices in China over the years and exfiltrating over 140GB of high-value data.[59]
The CVERC alleged that the attack involved a "longer period of preparatory work", setting up an anonymized attack infrastructure by leveraging SunOS zero-days to compromise institutions with large network traffic in 17 countries, 70% of which neighbored China. Those compromised machines were used as "springboards" to gain access into the NPU by leveraging man-in-the-middle and spear-phishing attacks against students and teachers. The report also claims the NSA had used two cover companies, "Jackson Smith Consultants" and "Mueller Diversified Systems", to purchase US-based IP addresses that would later be used in the FOXACID platform to launch attacks on the Northwestern.[45][59]
CVERC and 360 identified 41 different tools and malware samples during forensic analysis, many of which were similar or consistent with TAO weapons exposed in the Shadow Brokers leak. Investigators also attributed the attack to the Equation Group due to a mixture of attack times, human errors and American English keyboard inputs. Forensic analysis on one of the tools, called "NOPEN", which required human input, indicated that 98% of all attacks occurred during U.S. working hours, with no cyber-attacks being logged during weekends or during American holidays such as Memorial Day and Independence Day.[45]
Much more often, an implant is coded entirely in software by an NSA group called, Tailored Access Operations (TAO). As its name suggests, TAO builds attack tools that are custom-fitted to their targets. The NSA unit's software engineers would rather tap into networks than individual computers because there are usually many devices on each network. Tailored Access Operations has software templates to break into common brands and models of "routers, switches, and firewalls from multiple product vendor lines," according to one document describing its work.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
SecureList, Costin Raiu (director of Kaspersky Lab's global research and analysis team): "It seems to me Equation Group are the ones with the coolest toys. Every now and then they share them with the Stuxnet group and the Flame group, but they are originally available only to the Equation Group people. Equation Group are definitely the masters, and they are giving the others, maybe, bread crumbs. From time to time they are giving them some goodies to integrate into Stuxnet and Flame."
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
The Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO), structured as S32, is a cyberwarfare intelligence-gathering unit of the National Security Agency (NSA). It has been active since at least 1998, possibly 1997, but was not named or structured as TAO until "the last days of 2000," according to General Michael Hayden. TAO identifies, monitors, infiltrates, and gathers intelligence on computer systems being used by entities foreign to the United States.
The ANT catalog (or TAO catalog) is a classified product catalog by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) of which the version written in 2008–2009 was published by German news magazine Der Spiegel in December 2013. Forty-nine catalog pages with pictures, diagrams and descriptions of espionage devices and spying software were published. The items are available to the Tailored Access Operations unit and are mostly targeted at products from US companies such as Apple, Cisco and Dell. Although published during the heyday of the Snowden disclosures, the source is believed to be someone different than Edward Snowden. Companies whose products could be compromised have denied any collaboration with the NSA in developing these capabilities. In 2014, a project called the NSA Playset was started to implement the capabilities from the ANT catalog as open-source hardware and software.
The Shadow Brokers (TSB) are a hacker group that emerged in mid-2016. They published several leaks containing hacking tools, including several zero-day exploits, from the "Equation Group" who are widely suspected to be a branch of the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States. Specifically, these exploits and vulnerabilities targeted enterprise firewalls, antivirus software, and Microsoft products. The Shadow Brokers originally attributed the leaks to the Equation Group threat actor, who have been tied to the NSA's Tailored Access Operations unit.
Special Source Operations (SSO) is a division in the US National Security Agency (NSA) which is responsible for all programs aimed at collecting data from major fiber-optic cables and switches, both inside the US and abroad, and also through corporate partnerships. Its existence was revealed through documents provided by Edward Snowden to media outlets in 2013 and, according to him, it is the "crown jewel" of the NSA.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
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