The computer security firm Kaspersky Labs helped the US NSA spy agency uncover one of its worst-ever security breaches—one year before the US banned the company's products for government use, US media has reported.

Politico and the Washington Post said the Moscow-based maker of anti-malware products told the National Security Agency that one of its contractors, Harold Martin, had contacted it via cryptic messages on Twitter.

The messages arrived at Kaspersky shortly before unknown hackers known as the "Shadow Brokers" made available on the internet an assembly of advanced hacking tools that the ultra-secret signals intelligence body used to spy on the communications and computers of foreign governments and officials.

After the Shadow Brokers release, Kaspersky researchers thought there was a connection with Martin's messages and reached out with the information to the NSA.

Weeks later, in August 2016, federal agents arrested the contractor, Harold Martin, discovering that he had stockpiled in his home a massive amount of sensitive NSA data, computer code and programs—some 50 terabytes worth—over two decades.

It was considered the largest-ever breach of classified data in US history.

https://archive.fo/Arjbp

https://phys.org/news/2019-01-blacklisted-kaspersky-nsa-breach-media.html