PDA

View Full Version : Hacker Warning


DX Wombat
4th Jul 2003, 20:59
I received the following email from Zone Labs this morning:

"You may have heard about the "Defacers Challenge" taking place this
upcoming weekend. The U.S. government and several technology experts
have warned that an organized contest among hackers has been planned
for Sunday. The objective of the contest is to deface company Web
sites.

While the attack is not aimed at individuals, hackers often use
individual's computers to launch these types of attacks. And although
this does not represent an extreme threat, it's an important reminder
that even though we may be relaxing in the sun, hackers are still
hard at work.

........( edited to remove the advertising before I posted it)
To maximize your protection, we also recommend checking your
anti-virus software to make sure you are running the most recent
version.

You can find out more about the "Defacers Challenge" story at:
http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-1023172.html?tag=fd_top "

I don't understand the mentality behind this sort of thing. :mad:

timmcat
5th Jul 2003, 04:37
I don't understand the mentality behind this sort of thing.


Why do climbers climb mountains? 'Because its there, and they can'.

Virus writers have the same mentality.. its the 'thrill' of seeing your work succeed.

(please dont anyone take the above observations as in any way condoning the activities of these wanton vandals).

Tim.

Timothy
5th Jul 2003, 23:20
Speaking as a dispenser of justice, I have had to sit through a number of trials of graffitists, and have had to "get into" the group mentality of these people, and it has to be said that the mountain analogy is not so far amiss.

We all know the adage that laws and rules are there to be broken, and there are some people who feel that breaking them is a matter of honour and prestige. Therefore to get your personal grafitti 'tag' on either a high risk or high profile site scores highly among your peers.

I have even had a situation where one grafittist had learnt to do the tag of another, and then started writing it on low prestige sites in order to demonstrate the inferiority of the latter. (Evidence was produced from his bedroom of hours spent perfecting the other guy's tag.)

I imagine that hacking and virus writing are the same mentality writ large. No-one's going to get much cred from breaking into my company website because it's low profile and not particularly well protected. However, getting into the CIA's site and defacing it would gain the perpetrator life-long recognition.

I guess the better you protect your site, the greater the challenge.

My 2p worth.

W