Cyber Attacks Are The Perfect Trigger For A Stock Market Crash
Brandon Smith
Alt-Market.com
Wednesday, 17 May 2017
The world has been stunned over the past few days by the advent of “Ransomware;” the use of sophisticated cyber attacks on vital systems in order to (supposedly) extort capital from target businesses and institutions. I am always highly suspicious whenever a large scale cyber incident occurs, primarily because the manner in which these events are explained to the public does not begin to cover certain important realities. For example, the mainstream media rarely if ever discusses the fact that many digital systems are deliberately designed to be vulnerable.
Software and internet corporate monoliths have long been cooperating with the NSA through programs like PRISM to provide government agencies backdoor access to computer systems worldwide. Edward Snowden vindicated numerous “conspiracy theorists” in 2013 with his comprehensive data dumps, exposing collusion between corporations and the NSA including Microsoft, Skype, Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo. And make no mistake, nothing has changed since then.
The level of collusion between major software developers and the establishment might be shocking to some, but it was rather well known to alternative analysts and researchers. The use of legislation like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to skirt Constitutional protections within the 4th Amendment has been open policy for quite some time. It only made sense that government agencies and their corporate partners would use it as a rationale to develop vast protocols for invading people’s privacy, including American citizens.
The issue is, in the process of engineering software and networks with Swiss cheese-like defenses in the name of “national security,” such exploits make vast spreads of infrastructure vulnerable to attack. I think it likely this was the intention all along. That is to say, the NSA and other agencies have created a rather perfect breeding ground for false flag attacks, real attacks and general crisis.
It should be noted that the Ransomware attacks which struck systems around the world used “Wannacrypt,” derived from an NSA exploit called “Eternalblue.” This program was designed to specifically target Microsoft Windows machines, no doubt using vulnerabilities which Microsoft ENGINEERED into their own software. Now, interestingly, a batch of NSA exploits was published online by a hacker group called “the shadow brokers” only last month. From the information I have gathered so far, it seems that “Eternalblue” was part of that data dump and that the Ransomware incident is directly connected.
Something else that is very interesting about Eternalblue — as CNN notes, similar exploits were used not long ago by the NSA to get backdoor access to financial data within the SWIFT banking system. This was rather odd because through international agreements the NSA already had front door access to such data. However, front door access can be tracked and traced and any illicit activity can be exposed. Therefore, the NSA must have had something more nefarious in mind than simply looking for terrorist activity, such as testing the effectiveness of their own exploits for future use in attacks.
I mention the incident with SWIFT because it brings up a potential danger that I don’t think many people have considered. First, let’s assume for a moment that groups like the “shadow brokers” actually exist and aren’t some kind of NSA created front. These groups are using the considerable weaknesses that corporations like Microsoft put in place for the NSA in order to reap profits through criminal enterprise or to commit terrorist acts. The NSA and its Silicon Valley partners literally created this monster; a monster which has the capacity to attack otherwise secure banking networks like SWIFT.
This begs the question — how much of the global banking system and global stock exchanges are open to attack with these same NSA exploits. I would suggest that ALL of them are.
Second, let’s consider for a moment the possibility that groups like the “shadow brokers” are mostly fraudulent fronts for establishment agencies and elitists. Consider that maybe, just maybe, the NSA is releasing some of these exploits on purpose to the public. Why? Well, one might consider that issue complicated, but to summarize, it may be very advantageous for international banks and governments to deliberately place financial systems at risk.
The Rest…HERE
