It was an NSA computer algorithm that had come up with the name, but Eternal ended up being a fitting moniker for a set of zero-day exploits that would haunt Daniel, the NSA, and American businesses, towns, and cities for years to come. One of those exploits, EternalBlue, targeted critical bugs in a Microsoft software protocol called the server message block (SMB). The protocol enabled computers to pass information, like files or printer services, from server to server at internet speed.
