Diving into a lesson in social engineering gave me some understanding of the way we use language to hide what’s really happening. It seems the most basic definition of social engineering is the manipulation by a hacker of a business insider to reveal data that would otherwise be safe, secure and private to that business.
An edited excerpt from a new book by investigative journalist Huib Modderkolk called There’s a War On But No One Can See It delves into the story of Edwin and his parents in Rotterdam. Edwin grew up introverted and came to be the kid that spent 12 hours a day in his room tinkering with a home built PC. He roamed the darkest corners of computer servers with barely a torch. The inner motivation and obsession to find the next “window open,” an exploit that would allow unlimited access to some of the most important servers and corporate digital back rooms in the world.
Ireland Health Services (HSE), Ireland’s public hospital network, is digging its heels in to avoid paying ransom following a ransomware attack by the Conti group in mid-May causing chaos.
A white hat is a hacker with heart, Wiki gives a conservative definition here but a description with firework flair was recently documented in a Bloomberg piece quoting self-aggrandising hacker, Tillie Kottmann, “lots of curiosity, fighting for freedom of information and against intellectual property, a huge dose of anti-capitalism, a hint of anarchism — and it’s also just too much fun not to do it.” That really turns the hacker ‘stealing data and cash’ trope on its head.
AFP cyber crime unit, ReportCyber has tallied over 2000 reports since June this year of cyber attacks on Australian businesses.