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The NSA and other US government electronic security agencies are now significantly behind the leading edge of electronic security due to Congressional corruption, in a fashion very similar to a major cause of the World War Two failure of American torpedo detonators. Do a Google search for:

torpedo scandal

Those rarely mention how the dearth of 1920's - 1930's funding for military R&D also led to Congressional micromanagement of, and corruption in, funding of military R&D. Basically the US Navy's civilian manufacturing staff for torpedoes were heavily Congressional patronage appointees who were undisciplined and didn't give a hoot for quality control.

American defense procurement is getting that bad or worse, and this particularly applies to "black" budget procurement when the consequences of failure are so indirect as to be impossible to attribute to a given item. I.e., the hardware and software procurement for electronic security is very subject to Congressional meddling and mandates, and getting worse all the time. The contracts are micromanaged by Congress based on campaign contributions, aka kickbacks, by generous contractors to deserving Senators and Congressmen.

Who share with each other. Congressional committee chairs and even appointments are determined based on bribery. There are even on-line pricelists. See the photographs in Peter Schweizer's _Extortion_ here:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0544103343/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This will only get worse until we lose a city to terrorist nukes or lose a war, etc.

In the meantime the best electronic security in the US is found in the financial industry and very wealthy individuals. One of latter is Donald Trump, who is very aware of this issue.

The files included code allegedly designed to exploit firewalls from American manufacturers Cisco, Juniper and Fortinet.

I have no direct knowledge of the inner workings at NSA but... Seems to me they are such a big and obvious target, and such a massive and well funded target, and a group who has INFOSEC as one of their primary missions... Do you really think they rely on regular old commercial grade firewalls that anyone and everyone has access to, and could explore and exploit vulnerabilities in?

If it were me, the commercial firewalls would just be the outer layer. Just there to keep the common riff-raff out. I'd use them to identify the good hackers that could get through them. The guys I wanted to backtrace. Inside I'd use another layer of custom, home-made firewalls that no-one had ever seen before and thus had little or no idea how to hack through. But all the while they tried, I'd be watching and learning about them. If I were really mean, I'd make these look like a second line of commercial firewalls. Just a little bait and misdirection.

The hackers released 60 per cent of the files they claimed to have taken from the Equation Group.

ie. 60% of the honeypot that was left for them. Now here's the real conundrum for anyone interested in those files. Are they the real thing? Or are they part of an elaborate trap. If you get them, and in any way use or act on the information within, will that send up a red flag that you're the one with the files? Kind of blows your anonymity. But if you don't act on the information, then what good is having it? Paying for it? Taking the risks of getting it? Release them to the Internet, that way your interest is lost in the noise of a zillion other people. But if it is common knowledge, where's your advantage in having it too?

It's a good thing I'm just a simple engineer. I'd hate to have to make those kinds of calls.