Potential

Computer hackers are on the rise.  Any information you store on devices that access the Internet is up for grabs.  Hackers have the potential to reprogram electronic devices and tamper with existing technologies to accomplish tasks different from their original intent or design.



Kevin Poulson hacked telephone lines going into Los Angeles area radio station KIIS-FM, thereby assuring himself to be the 102nd caller, receiving a Porsche 944 S2 for his efforts (Hacking – Hall of Fame).  Sweet, right?  That was in 1990.



Fast-forward two decades:  Today, nations like the United States, China, Israel, and Iran are at war in cyberspace (Higgins; Mulrine).  Hackers develop sophisticated code, like Stuxnet, to attack other countries’ infrastructures and economies that are dependent on computers.  Stuxnet, possibly developed by Israel and the United States, targeted Iranian nuclear facilities in 2010 and sabotaged the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz (Higgins).



If threats like Stuxnet exist, is your start-up venture or established company safe?  No. It is not. 



Forget your Facebook account being hacked and stalked by your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend. 



Cyber-espionage on U.S. companies has cost billions of dollars in revenue, and even lives (Mulrine)!  Traffic light networks, government elections, electrical and nuclear power plants, stock exchanges, medical records, banking, top-secret weapons, and even insulin pumps for diabetics are all systems whose integrity and stability people depend on daily.  Hackers have compromised all of these systems, and these systems continue to be at risk (Greenfield).



Hackers can manipulate traffic lights to cause car-collisions and chaos; trigger dangerous temperature pressures in nuclear power plants to cause them to explode; change prescriptions on medical records that may cause deadly allergic reactions to patients; steal military technologies and information to sell on the black market; and even cause insulin pumps to pump (or not pump) deadly amounts of insulin into a person remotely (Greenfield)!

However, not all hackers seek money or lives.

Hacktivists

When U.S. legislators proposed the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), political activists throughout the United States united to fight online censorship.  Google, Mozilla, Flickr, Reddit, and Wikipedia, along with the combined effort of over 115,000 websites protested online (Protests against SOPA and PIPA). 



The effect was grand.  The bills lost support on Capitol Hill, but more importantly, people that united to fight online censorship learned that computer keyboards are the new Muskets.  Hackers successfully attacked the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in protest of SOPA and for shutting down Megaupload, which provided file sharing services.



Hackers worldwide are combining their skillsets to fight politically in a new kind of war.  Hacktivist groups like Anonymous and LulzSec are at the forefront of this hacker political movement.  These groups fight censorship and anything they deem unjust, breaking any laws that prevent them from fighting effectively.  These hackers discovered ways to protest and even revolt without being tear-gassed and fire-hosed—using a keyboard (youcefdar).



Strong believers in civil disobedience, Anonymous and LulzSec have attacked the following (Anonymous Group): 



• The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, for finding The Pirate Bay guilty of facilitating extensive copyright infringement in a commercial and organized form.
• Lolita City, for hosting child-pornography.  Anonymous exposed an entire ring of child-pornography sites.
• “The Great Firewall of China,” for censoring the Internet to the Chinese.
• Sarah Palin, for attempting to censor WikiLeaks.
• Casey Anthony, in response to the jury’s decision of acquitting her from first-degree murder of her two-year-old daughter.
• SONY, for persecuting PlayStation hackers and restricting Internet freedom.

Anonymous masks themselves with the mask used by anarchist V, recently made popular in the motion picture, V for Vendetta (2005).  Though government agencies continue to investigate and persecute hackers, they remain…anonymous.  Anonymous ends all their messages broadcasted to the public with their notorious slogan (Anonymous Group):



“We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect Us.”



Hacktivists strive to reveal sensitive information, presenting to the people what “real” criminals have the potential to do due to the lack of network securities (youcefdar).  Hacktivist groups typically do not steal identities, money or credit card information (youcefdar).  Nevertheless, the United States labels hacktivist groups, cyber-terrorists (WeAreLegionDoc).

Counter-Attack

Companies are fighting back—fire with fire.  Whether hackers penetrate with a criminal or political intent, the fact is, companies that hold customer’s sensitive and personal information cannot afford to be hacked. 



Because Anonymous hacked SONY, their PlayStation Network was out of service for three weeks, costing the company $150 million.  It does not end there.  A one billion dollar lawsuit is in the works for compromising customers’ information (Gilbert).



Companies typically stock up their arsenals with lawyers.  Lawrence Garfield explains, “Of course I’ve got lawyers.  They’re like nuclear warheads.  They’ve got theirs, so I have mine.  Once you use them, they fuck everything.”  This is changing because lawyers are required to abide by laws and regulations—hackers are not law-abiding citizens.  Unsurprisingly, companies are fed-up with hackers and governments that are incapable of responding effectively.  Companies are seeking their own army of hackers, also known as white-hats; this new line of defense ranges from simple countermeasures to “controversial and possibly illegal” tactics to protect the companies (Menn).  Simple countermeasures include fortifying networks with firewalls and implementing strategic network topologies.  Controversial tactics may include leading on hackers to believe they have successfully infiltrated a network, instead of expelling them immediately, and provide the hackers malicious files that ruin their computers when downloaded—hacker traps (Menn).



Taking an aggressive posture affirms that network security professionals are angry, especially when their own jobs can be on the line.  Hiring computer hackers and information-security management teams for “active-defense,” are how companies and organizations are choosing to fight back.  Information security is no longer a luxury—it is a necessary insurance.  Norton and SpyDoc are not going to cut it; your typical IT department consisting of ITT and UCLA graduates and former Geek-Squad employees aren’t either.  Companies are emerging whose expertise is in fortifying networks.  Fortune 500 companies are now hiring their own team of hackers to penetrate their own company, analyze their vulnerabilities, patch them up, and then continue managing and monitors the company’s security—InfoSec Management (Cilley).

Your Stance

Whether you believe hackers to be cyber-terrorists or civil rights champions, the fact is that hackers are responsible for our technical revolution.  Mobile phones, laptops, tablets, servers, cloud computing, and personal computers exist because hackers thought it first.  Jobs, Gates, Wozniak, Torvalds, and Zuckerberg are all famous hackers who have revolutionized how people communicate and interact, socially and with systems.  Like most tools, hacking is a skill that can be used for good, for evil, and all the shades of gray in between.  The University of Southern California hosts “hackathons” for hackers to gather and solve or improve on real-world issues, such as city transit systems.



Whether you support the hacker’s cause to defend freedom of information and speech, hire InfoSec management teams to fight hackers, become a hacktivist yourself, or choose to remain idle, the fact is—you are already a part of their world.

 

​Works Cited


“Anonymous (group).”  Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.  Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.  15 Sep 2012.  Web.  17 Sep. 2012.  < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA>



Cilley, Jon.  “Breaches Companies Fight Back by Hacking Hackers.”  Bit9.  26 Jun 2012.  Web.  17 Sep. 2012. 
<https://www.bit9.com/blog/2012/06/26/breached-companies-fight-back-by-hacking-hackers>



Gilbert, Ernice.  “Sony Faces $1Billion Lawsuit.”  gamesthirst.  3 May 2011.  Web.  17 Sep 2012.
<http://www.vgsynergy.com/2011/05/03/sony-faces-1billion-dollar-lawsuit>



Greenfield, Joseph.  “From Hackers to CEOs!” University of Southern California.  Jan 2011.
Lecture Presentation Slides (published).



“Hacking – Hall of Fame.”  The Frances Farmers Revenge Web Portal.  Web.  17 Sep 2012.
< http://www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/misc/hack/hall.htm>



Higgins, Kelly Jackson.  “Stuxnet, Duqu, Flame Targeted Illegal Windows Systems in Iran.”  Dark Reading.  19 Jun 2012.  Web.  17 Sep 2012.

<http://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/167901121/security/news/240002364/stuxnet-duqu-flame-targeted-illegal-windows-systems-in-iran.html>



Menn, Joseph.  “Hacked companies fight back with controversial steps.”  Reuters.  Thomson Reuters.  17 Jun. 2012.  Web.  17 Sep 2012.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/17/us-media-tech-summit-cyber-strikeback-idUSBRE85G07S20120617



Mulrine, Anna.  “China is a lead cyberatacker of US military computer, Pentagon report.”  The Christian Science Monitor.  18 May 2012.  Print.  17 Sep. 2012.

“Protests against SOPA and PIPA.”  Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.  Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.  12 Sep 2012.  Web.  17 Sep 2012.
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA>



The Mentor.  “The Hacker Manifesto.”  Mithral.  8 Jan 1986.  Web.  17 Sep 2012.
< http://www.mithral.com/~beberg/manifesto.html>



WeAreLegionDoc.  “We Are Legion:  The Story of Hacktivists - Trailer.”  YouTube.  4 Nov 2011. Web.  17 Sep 2012.  <http://youtu.be/gn9-80ObGA8>
V for Vendetta.  Dir. James McTeigue.  WarnerBros., 2005.  DVD.

​

youcefdar.  “Anonymous – Hackers World [HD].”  YouTube.  25 Jan 2012.  Web.  17 Sep 2012.
<http://youtu.be/9JyWGMv7ROo>