I also have Kevin Mitnick's business card and it is one of my most prized possessions. A great inspiration and influence on my life.
A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison
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Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison
#62I worked at a company that had hired Mitnick as a security consultant. His report for a client that turned out to have been rife with SQL injection at the time was largely movie plot physical security stuff. Not wrong exactly, but not the center mass of the threat model they needed either. He seemed to lack systems thinking, producing a report that focused on calling out specific employees as dumb or incompetent. Cou…
He mostly used social engineering. Not technical exploits. So that's how he succeeded. Call it crazy, but it worked.
Why hack a password when you can get the employee to just tell you.
Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison
#63Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison
#64I worked at a company that had hired Mitnick as a security consultant. His report for a client that turned out to have been rife with SQL injection at the time was largely movie plot physical security stuff. Not wrong exactly, but not the center mass of the threat model they needed either. He seemed to lack systems thinking, producing a report that focused on calling out specific employees as dumb or incompetent. Cou…
In all fairness, a genuine attacker WILL be abrasive and abusive. They WILL single out employees that are gullible and exploit them. It's not pretty because a genuine attack is not pretty. Of course a simulated attack will be indecent and discourteous in nature, that is how attacks are.
Not necessarily WILL. I've seen awesome attackers who were mostly checkbox spreadsheet clerks. Friendly, methodical, boring, expert.
Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison
#65I read the book by Tsutomu Shimomura, who caught Mitnick's hacking and tracked him down. It's a fascinating read. He was able to locate Mitnick in physical world based on his online activities and his cellular phone usage. In those early days, few people understood the cyber landscape and cellular technologies to exploit them.
Yes but AFAIUI Mitnick was upset Shimomura had the full weight of the police on his side, right? He used techniques that shouldn't have been available to him Interesting fact about Shimomura, he was a student of Feynman's
> He used techniques that shouldn't have been available to him
Why not? Sometimes it's not what you know, it's who you know.
Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison
#66Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison
#67I'm going to defend Kevin here because I see a lot of comments from people I am sure have no valid reason to be hating on him. Kevin was particularly annoying because he never failed to penetrate a target. The reason that's annoying is it just takes one slip, one weak point, one inattentive admin and it's over. People will stay mad about that. I get it. But those who say he had no talent are just ignorant. His goal w…
I'm old enough to remember Kevin as both hero and villain. People are complex, Kevin seemed to be no exception. His exploits - and the ones of those who caught him - were fascinating to follow in realtime.
But be honest...
How sweet is that 911?
Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison
#68Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison
#69I worked at a company that had hired Mitnick as a security consultant. His report for a client that turned out to have been rife with SQL injection at the time was largely movie plot physical security stuff. Not wrong exactly, but not the center mass of the threat model they needed either. He seemed to lack systems thinking, producing a report that focused on calling out specific employees as dumb or incompetent. Cou…
I mean, the landscape changed quite a bit since early days of what Mitnick did as a blackhat. He did his best to adapt and make money, which given his prison term, isn't really that surprising.
Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison
#70I worked at a company that had hired Mitnick as a security consultant. His report for a client that turned out to have been rife with SQL injection at the time was largely movie plot physical security stuff. Not wrong exactly, but not the center mass of the threat model they needed either. He seemed to lack systems thinking, producing a report that focused on calling out specific employees as dumb or incompetent. Cou…
> "He was a hacker-turned-security consultant who, later in life, helped shape the modern white-hat." They left out convicted criminal.
You act like thats a bad thing given the nature of his crimes.
If more people strived to be like Mitnick today, the tech world would have a lot more power.