20 ms·
What's the TAO?
by __derek__ 10y ago
What's the TAO?
- Bartweiss 10y agoTailored Access Operations. It's the "offense" branch of the NSA, responsible for gaining access to external computer systems: often technologically, sometimes legislatively when they're domestic. They did QUANTUM and FOXACID among other access tools. It's a major part of the NSA, and generally considered to be where the bulk of the "serious hackers" work. The Equation Group is (probably) tied to TAO - they're the access group that was recently affected by the Shadow Brokers leak.
- Tushon 10y agoThis appears to be what OP was referring to (a cyber espionage sub-unit of the NSA): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailored_Access_Operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailored_Access_Operations Bartweiss provided a better, short summary.
- __derek__ 10y agoThanks! In hindsight, I should have searched for 'tao nsa' rather than just 'tao'.