Gallimaufry Grey Hats - For the Greater Good

Recently I wrote about a couple of very notable White Hat hackers who have literally changed the world as we know it. Those savants of technology took a concept and made it staple in the world we live in. Today we turn the tables though and look at a couple of adventurous grey hat hackers that used their considerable skills to make a statement.

How to Hack the Government!

What do you think of when you think of the government? Do you think of greed, corruption, and wasteful spending, or do you think of pride, liberty, and equality? Chances are if you think of the latter you may feel that hacking into the government would be fun and prove a point that they are not as powerful as they make themselves out to be. These feelings of distrust can be seen in the eyes of many hackers that make it a point to take down .gov websites.

Jeremy Hammond felt that way and wanted to take down those sites and all that were connected to the government.

Would You Hire a Hacker?

 

This is a tricky question and is best answered with an “it depends.” Looking at the different perspectives on this can bring many questions to mind: Are they just here to gain knowledge for a competitor? Will they turn against my company and hack into our own system? Are they still hacking into other companies? Are they hacking while they are at work?

All of these questions and more are very valid points that should be considered when looking at candidates for a tech position within your company.

But that raises another question, how many “straight laced” employees are actually hackers in disguise?

The guy or girl in the next cubicle could be a serial hacker, working in the dead of the night stealing secrets, taking down company and government websites, or even worse. So you never know who you are dealing with these days. When watching the news, what is the one thing you hear over and over again about criminals that get caught; “He was just a regular guy. Kind of kept to himself, but was always friendly and even helped me with…” This image that a criminal, especially a cyber-criminal, like a hacker is hunkered down in a shack in the woods Unabomber style may be true for a small percentage of this subculture, but is unlikely for the masses.

Paranoid yet?

Let’s go back to the thesis and one theory; let’s say you are a technology firm, and you are looking to protect your proprietary project that will be ground breaking bringing your company to the next level. You are concerned about the security of your company and protecting the front door, so you deploy a solid two-factor authentication solution, secure the network with a strong firewall, and buy the best anti-malware software on the market. But the thought of someone hacking in and stealing your life’s work is still keeping you up at night.

So what do you do?

Hire a hacker to protect your castle. Crazy? Not so much. Who understands a hacker better than someone woven from the same wool; they speak the language, and can see holes within a security system better than most. Sometimes when you are so close to the trees it is hard to see the forest; there may be vulnerability right in front of your face that you have missed. That tree that is right in front of you is blocking you from seeing a backdoor entrance that a hacker can just walk right in and gain access to the whole company and suck it dry.

Like mentioned in a previous article, the FBI has been hiring criminals for years to catch other criminals and fight crime. Heck if they are doing it successfully, why not follow suit?

Keep your hacker happy, pay the hacker a very healthy salary, get them the most high-tech everything that they ask for, and let them do their job. You take care of them, and they will protect you; they will not bite the hand that feeds.

There are even companies, like Neighborhoodhacker.com that offer the services of hiring an ethical hacker to handle cleaning up after a hacker attack. Hackers are smart people who have a very select set of skills that can be used for good if channeled correctly.

Now the flip side of this question and the true catch 22 of the question. Say you do hire a hacker, get them set up in your company and they are still hacking on the side. Like a junkie trying to get clean they just cannot seem to break the ties and get the monkey off their back. They love the rush of breaking into a company and bringing them to their knees, a real evil dude.

They come into your company and protect your castle, but they are breaking into other castles while at home or even worse… while at work. They get caught, the FBI raids your company looking for all of the machines they were working on and confiscates it for evidence. What are you to do? You not only just lost your defense department, you also lost company hardware, and now have to testify in court. Wow, that escalated quickly!

Although the second scenario is less likely it could happen, unlikely but still a possibility. So would you roll the dice and hire a hacker?

 

Hackers Have All The Fun!

 

Let’s think about that statement for a minute. Hackers in the movies (some movies at least) are cool, sexy people who live life in the fast lane without a care in the world!

“Never send a boy to do a woman’s job.”  A line from the classic movie “Hackers,” from the lips of Angelina Jolie, a.k.a. Kate Libby, a.k.a. Acid Burn.

This movie glorified the life and excitement of a hacker; cracking the code, getting the money, and taking down big business. Even though this movie is a bit dated in the current scheme of things the motives are still there.

In the modern world, there is a mix of hackers; some hackers do it for fun, some for glory, organized crime, to change grades, or just to prove a point. In a twisted way, it is the old adage of good vs. evil; however, depending on which side of the hacker attack you are on, your point of view of good or evil can change.

For groups like Anonymous they live by their own “code:”

“Knowledge is free.

We are anonymous.

We are legion.

We do not forgive.

We do not forget.

Expect us!”

When you read this mantra, it can sound much like the thoughts of any organized crime group. Let’s compare them to another group that believes that there should not be certain restrictions on items, the Mafia. The Mafia has been around for many, many years and can sometimes be invisibly involved in the background of your daily routine. Some of them believe that money should be made freely, without paying taxes or reporting anything to the government. In the movies and in real life, people identify with them and many look up to them as vigilante heroes. The John Gotti’s, Whitey Bulger’s, and Al Capone’s of the world are glorified criminals that inspired many books, movies, and TV shows like The Sopranos.

In the past the crimes that the Mafia committed were more in the physical form; however, organized crime now plays a huge part in the hacking business as well. But enough on the Mafia, the government now looks to combat hackers like they do the Mafia.

In a recent US News & Report article, they outline that many foreign countries actually sponsor the hackers to advance their countries economy, cracking into large, successful companies to steal trade secrets to build cheap knockoffs to sell on the black market. Within the past year, the FBI actually hired some hackers of their own to help track down, investigate, and capture cyber criminals much like the FBI did in the past by hiring members of organized crime to assist them.

But can the evil actually do something good?

In the battle of good vs. evil, Anonymous declared a cyber-war against the terrorist group ISIS. Their plan of attack is to go after the countries that harbor these terrorists:

“We plan on sending a straightforward message to Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and all other countries that evidently supply ISIS for their own gain,” the source said. “In the next few days we will begin defacing the government websites of these countries so that they understand this message clearly.”

This raises the question; does this make Anonymous more of a Robin Hood type of figure or is this a statement to the world’s Governments that they are a stronger unit than a country’s military?  

So let’s look at the statement again. “Hackers get to have all of the fun!” If you are a hacker you can be looked at as a potential to save the world from a terrorist group, get a sweet job with the FBI and assumingly take on a whole new identity, and you can get lucky with someone that looks like Angelina Jolie. So yeah, it does seem like they get to have all of the fun.

Unless of course you are one of those hackers who gets caught and sent to prison.