At this point, it’s important to move laterally and find the things you need to find,” he said. “So after you’re in a network, rarely do you land where you need to be. Joyce didn’t say exactly what those are, but Germany’s Der Speigel reported in December 2013, based on internal NSA documents, that TAO uses a host of tools to extract information and otherwise exploit the system.Īlso, the hacker will need to “move laterally” to find the data they’re after. They’re going to be using the best practices for offense, you’ve got to be using best practices for defense,” he said.Īfter getting inside, Joyce said attackers will need to establish a toe-hold in the system, install “light-weight” tools to pave the way for bigger ones. “If you have something somebody’s coming at and you need to defend it, you need to be looking at what is that apex predator going to be doing to come after your information. NSA hackers get into the system the same way as any hackers, Joyce said, by tricking users into clicking links they shouldn’t or visiting websites infested with malware or by plugging in compromised thumb drives. We’ll poke and poke and wait and wait until we get in,” he said. “There’s a reason it’s called an ‘Advanced Persistent Threat’ (APT). He said not even temporary lightening of security is a good idea because that’s when hackers will take advantage. And we’re going to look and look and look for that esoteric kind of edge case to break open and crack in.” “We need that first crack, that first seam. “Don’t assume a crack is too small to be noticed, or too small to be exploited,” he said. “We need that first crack and we’ll look to find it.” “Our key to success is knowing that network better than the people who set it up,” he said.

My talk today is to tell you, as a nation-state exploiter, what do to defend yourself, to make my life hard.” “I’m in a unique position in that we produce, in TAO, foreign intelligence for a wide range of missions to include advice informing policymakers, protecting the nation’s warfighters 24/7 and in that space we’re doing nation-state exploitation. “I will admit that it’s very strange, to be in that position up here on a stage in front of a group of people,” Rob Joyce, Chief of the NSA’s TAO, told an audience at the Usenix Enigma security conference in San Francisco Wednesday. Exactly how the Tailored Access Operations (TAO) cell works is a closely-held secret - despite some recent leaks - but in a rare public appearance, TAO’s chief shed some light on how America’s top cyber spies do their thing. — - Inside the notoriously secretive National Security Agency is an elite unit made up of some of the best hackers on the planet, charged with breaking into computer networks around the world.

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