From cold to cyber warriors: the origins and expansion of NSA’s Tailored Access Operations (TAO) to Shadow Brokers

Abstract

ABSTRACTHow did the National Security Agency (NSA) adopt the practice of hacking? This paper explores how NSA confronted the digital age by focusing on arguably NSA’s key organizational innovation as a microcosm of these broader changes: the Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO). This paper develops a pragmatist model of organizational change showing how the practice of hacking became a practical solution to deal with the problems posed by a globally networked world through TAO’s case history. TAO’s aggressive expansion by developing a scalable Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) architecture was designed to keep NSA relevant in the twenty-first century.