The Shadow Brokers

The Shadow Brokers (TSB) is a hacker group originating in summer 2016. They published several leaks of some of the National Security Agency (NSA) hacking tools including zero-day exploits. Specifically, exploits and vulnerabilities targeting enterprise firewalls, anti-virus products and Microsoft products, tied to the Equation Group threat actor,NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO).

Several news sources noted that the groups name was likely in reference to a character from the Mass Effect series. Matt Suiche quoted the following description of that character: "The Shadow Broker is an individual at the head of an expansive organization which trades in information, always selling to the highest bidder. The Shadow Broker appears to be highly competent at its trade: all secrets that are bought and sold never allow one customer of the Broker to gain a significant advantage, forcing the customers to continue trading information to avoid becoming disadvantaged, allowing the Broker to remain in business."

While the exact date is unclear, reports suggest that preparation of the leak started at least in the beginning of August, and that the initial publication occurred August 13, 2016, with a Tweet from the Twitter account, "@theshadowbrokerss", announcing a Pastebin page and a GitHub repository containing references and instructions for obtaining and decrypting the content of a file, supposedly containing tools and exploits used by Equation Group.

The Pastebin-page introduces a section titled "Equation Group Cyber Weapons Auction - Invitation", with the following content:

Equation Group Cyber Weapons Auction - Invitation

- ------------------------------------------------

!!! Attention government sponsors of cyber warfare and those who profit from it !!!!

How much you pay for enemies cyber weapons? Not malware you find in networks. Both sides, RAT + LP, full state sponsor tool set? We find cyber weapons made by creators of stuxnet, duqu, flame. Kaspersky calls Equation Group. We follow Equation Group traffic. We find Equation Group source range. We hack Equation Group. We find many many Equation Group cyber weapons. You see pictures. We give you some Equation Group files free, you see. This is good proof no? You enjoy!!! You break many things. You find many intrusions. You write many words. But not all, we are auction the best files. .

...
Wikipedia