Users are protected from alleged NSA malware, says Microsoft

The NSA has not yet commented on the leak.

Microsoft has confirmed that most of the NSA's hacking tools created to target Windows published earlier this week have been patched.

In a statement to Reuters, Microsoft, maker of Windows, said it had not been warned by any part of the usa government that such files existed or had been stolen.

"At this time, other than reporters, no individual or organization has contacted us in relation to the materials released by Shadow Brokers", a Microsoft spokesperson said in an email on Friday. Under a White House process established by former President Barack Obama's staff, companies were usually warned about risky flaws.

Shook said criminal hackers could use the information released to hack into banks and steal money in operations mimicking a heist past year of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank. Hackers could potentially use the released exploits to hack into banks.

One spreedsheet contained in the release listed a slew of banks based in the Middle East that were successfully infected by NSA spyware. The security threat is apparently reduced in just few hours.

"We mandate that all customers apply the security updates within specified times", Swift said in a statement. Also, they have said in the statement that some of the SWIFT client banks might have been breached but they didn't mention NSA specifically. When cyber-thieves robbed Bank of Bangladesh a year ago, they compromised that bank's local Swift network to order money transfers from its account at the New York Federal Reserve.

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EastNets is one of 74 local service bureaus worldwide certified by Swift, acting as an interface between the global network and smaller banks and financial institutions in the Middle East.

Beaumont wasn't alone. Matthew Hickey, of cybersecurity firm Hacker House, also ran the code against earlier versions of Windows on Friday.

Service bureaus handle transactions on behalf of smaller banks. It said there was no evidence its own network had been compromised. Researchers were able to replicate some of the hacks.

Because tracking sources of terrorist financing and money flows among criminal groups is a high priority, SWIFT transfers would be a natural espionage target for many national intelligence agencies.

But even though Microsoft had patched the flaws, the company didn't say what the source of the vulnerability report was, as something noted by security researcher The Grugq in a tweet.

The Shadow Brokers documents, whose authenticity has not been verified by The National, suggest that the NSA has used access to EastNets systems to monitor Middle Eastern customers' financial transactions.

Reuters could not independently confirm that EastNets had been hacked.

One of SWIFT's service bureaus, the Dubai-based EastNets, which was allegedly among those hacked, strongly rejected the claims as "totally false and unfounded".

The agency monitored the system to spot payments meant to finance crimes, according to the documents released by Snowden.

"Shadow Brokers" has previously released leaked malware which it attempted to sell for tens of millions of dollars.