Experts have two theories for how top secret NSA data was stolen — and both are equally disturbing

In the wake of an unprecedented breach of hacking tools and exploits apparently stolen from the National Security Agency’s elite hacking unit, experts are offering two competing theories on how it happened — and both are equally disturbing.

Some former agency employees believe the alleged group behind the leak, “Shadow Brokers,” may have hacked an NSA server that had a top secret hacker toolkit left there by mistake.

Others believe the “Brokers” may be just a smokescreen for another possibility: An agency mole. “The key thing I think people are missing is that [most are talking] about how someone hacked a command-and-control box somewhere on the Internet,” Dave Aitel, an ex-NSA research scientist who now leads penetration testing firm Immunity, told Business Insider. “If you actually look at the files, it really doesn’t seem like that is the case.”