09-17-2020 , 04:56 AM
https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/hackers-movie/37028/ A modern take on the movie Hackers
To mark the film’s 25th anniversary, we examine Hackers in terms of modern information security.
Nikolay Pankov
September 14, 2020 Several common misconceptions hinder the widespread adoption of cybersecurity culture. One myth — hackers are really smart, so it’s pointless to fight them —was popularized in particular by the movie Hackers, released exactly a quarter of a century ago. The movie gave rise to a set of clichés still employed by the film industry.
Indeed, the movie’s misfit heroes and their adversary, Plague, an infosec expert at Ellingson Mineral, are portrayed as highly intelligent geeks able to find and exploit vulnerabilities in any information system.
For example, the main character is equally at ease breaking into a school database and a cable operator’s network. Phantom Phreak makes calls from payphones to Venezuela without paying a cent. Even Joey, the group’s youngest and least-experienced hacker, manages to gain access to the Gibson supercomputer at Ellingson Mineral. It all looks quite impressive (for 1995) but let’s take a closer look at the crew’s accomplishments.
To mark the film’s 25th anniversary, we examine Hackers in terms of modern information security.
Nikolay Pankov
September 14, 2020 Several common misconceptions hinder the widespread adoption of cybersecurity culture. One myth — hackers are really smart, so it’s pointless to fight them —was popularized in particular by the movie Hackers, released exactly a quarter of a century ago. The movie gave rise to a set of clichés still employed by the film industry.
Indeed, the movie’s misfit heroes and their adversary, Plague, an infosec expert at Ellingson Mineral, are portrayed as highly intelligent geeks able to find and exploit vulnerabilities in any information system.
For example, the main character is equally at ease breaking into a school database and a cable operator’s network. Phantom Phreak makes calls from payphones to Venezuela without paying a cent. Even Joey, the group’s youngest and least-experienced hacker, manages to gain access to the Gibson supercomputer at Ellingson Mineral. It all looks quite impressive (for 1995) but let’s take a closer look at the crew’s accomplishments.