The more connected people become via present day technology, the easier it is to transfer or collect information. In fact, it has become so easy that ANYONE can do it. Since people with limited computer knowledge have the ability to easily upload files, e-mail them to other servers, and download whatever they please, imagine the power those with serious expertise have. This brings us to the subject of computer hacking, which has expanded from its niche origins to an international tour de force ready to take on all comers.
Hackers go mainstream, no matter the experience level
Hackers have saturated the technology industry for the past few decades, but have become a mainstream part of technological culture very recently. The month of July 2011 has been no stranger to the hacking subculture, as two major, but divergent, incidents garnered worldwide attention. The first involved the Pentagon’s revelation that 24,000 Department of Defense files were “lost” in a cyberattack in March. This potentially has massive implications for American national security, and is the most damaging breach the U.S. military has ever seen. The Department of Defense has not disclosed who they believe hacked their system, or what files were stolen.
Courtesy of www.abcnewsradio.com
The second incident, the News Corp. phone hacking scandal, has gotten even more coverage because of its effects on a wide base of people, including British Prime Minister David Cameron and News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch. Specifically, the hacked accounts belonged to families of murder victims, or in the case of 13-year-old Milly Dowler, the victims themselves. In this situation, the alleged hackers weren’t even experts, but rather journalists of the shamed and now obsolete News of the World tabloid. In an example where hacking has been simplified to the lowest degree, the alleged hackers most likely used a Caller ID spoofing service that would trick the voicemail into believing it was being called by the typed number. Principles of the scandal aside, this may disturb people who don’t yet realize the power the average person can have once they harness technology.
The final issue of News of the World courtesy of www.mirror.co.uk
Organized hacking… sort of
True hackers, like the ones that compromised the Department of Defense attack, are more dangerous toward the future of the internet’s openness. Two major factions are gaining notoriety for their attacks on government and private websites: Anonymous and LulzSec. Little is known about the factions due to their loose foundation of members, making it increasingly difficult for law enforcement to keep track of them.
Courtesy of www.ebaumsworld.com
Anonymous has been known for disrupting MasterCard, VISA, and Monsanto websites with a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDOS), preventing the sites from functioning properly. LulzSec aimed even higher, bringing down the CIA website for a day in June and redirecting the Sun’s homepage to a hoax story about Rupert Murdoch’s death. (Anyone can appreciate the irony of the Murdoch umbrella being hacked.) In both the U.S. and the U.K., authorities have conducted a series of raids to combat these kinds of cyberattacks. It is very possible that these raids, while admirable in trying to obtain information on primary members, are only going to instigate more online security breaches.
Why the game changed
What is striking about this recent attention to the hacker world is the way it has entered pop culture and government. People looked at computer hackers and the first thing that popped into anyone’s head was “e-mail chain virus.” Now they may think “Wikileaks.” The intentions of each hacker may be different, and may be held with opposing values, but these mainstream hackers are driven by more than just the idea of making someone’s website freeze. Just look online to any related news article and see who is being hacked the most.
With governments making it a clear initiative to put an end to hacking, it shows the impact these focused attacks have already made. The prevalence of news coverage is more than enough evidence to show that computer hacking is the new “in” crime, and one that can grow into an even bigger problem in the next decade if more people plan to use it with malicious intent.
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