Since computers were first connected with Ethernet cables, Hollywood started romanticizing hackers.
The movie was a science fiction thriller starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy as high school students who accidentally hacked a military supercomputer using an acoustic coupler, a device that connects phone lines with computers to send and receive data.
The fascination with hacking continues today as Hollywood scriptwriters poured out pages of epic hacker-related entertainment from The Matrix in 1999 to Mr. Robot in 2019.
As fictional as these stories may be-real life holds even stranger, true hacker tails.
The damage from hackers can result in the bizarre to the devastating.
In July 2017, the BBC reported how two individuals could hack into a Laserwash to make it attack vehicles once inside.
Equifax let several security areas lapse and allow attackers access to sensitive Personally Identifiable Information, including date of birth, social security numbers, addresses, driver's license numbers, etc.
In a bizarre example of reality following the fictional WarGames movie, in 2021, the Colonial Pipeline, an American fueling company, was the target of hackers who unleashed the DarkSide ransomware via a legacy Virtual Private Network system that did not have multi-factor authentication.
Today, hackers have organized into well-structured businesses that compete for top talent, from CEOs and HR to project managers and coders.
Several hacking groups are more prolific than others, and a few have become infamous in the last few years-the Hive group is one such gang.
Not shy about boasting about its crimes, the group even posts details of some of them on its dark web blog.
Instead of stopping solely conducting attacks, Hive realized it could make even more money by selling its software to other groups or individuals, creating the Ransomware-as-a-Service model.
This model allows the group to concentrate on just one stage of the cyber-attack chain rather than trying to manage every step, selling access and tools to other groups who want to take advantage of it.
It sometimes makes it harder for them to identify which group has conducted which crime because multiple groups use Hive's code.
Known for its aggressiveness and frequent attacks, its members work hard to evolve their tactics, techniques and procedures to keep security experts from blocking its objectives.
Naturally, few crime groups declare how much money they make, and most organizations that have suffered from ransomware attacks don't like to state how much they have paid out.
Along the transition from tape to digital storage, criminals began to trade in their pistols for programmers as a less physical method for stealing money.
Hacker organizations are growing too quickly and too smart, outpacing many IT staff in knowledge, technique, and passion.
Third-party cybersecurity experts have unique insights into the latest hacking techniques and are prepared to identify and respond accordingly.
Invest in expert cybersecurity help-because hacking organizations are outpacing your budget, knowledge, and desire.
This Cyber News was published on www.cyberdefensemagazine.com. Publication date: Fri, 22 Dec 2023 06:13:05 +0000