Is This the Golden Age of Hacking?

Barence writes "With a seemingly continuous wave of attacks hitting the public and commercial sectors, there has never been a more prodigious period for hackers, argues PC Pro. What has led to the sudden hacking boom? Ease of access to tools has also led to an explosion in the numbers of people actively looking for companies with weakened defenses, according to security experts. Meanwhile, the recession has left thousands of highly skilled IT staff out of work and desperate for money, while simultaneously crimping companies' IT security budgets. The pressure to get systems up and running as quickly as possible also means that networks aren't locked down as tightly as they should be, which can leave back doors open for hackers."

Comments

Methinks it be the script-kiddies

[amalek]

Meanwhile, the recession has left thousands of highly skilled IT staff out of work and desperate for money, while simultaneously crimping companies' IT security budgets... ?

Re:Methinks it be the script-kiddies

[Anrego]

crimping companies' IT security budgets

Most were already crippled, which is really what I blame for the problem.

For a _long_ time "this could get hacked" was a theory. Yes if someone dedicated resources at you and knew where to look they could get in.. but who is going to target _us_.

The availability of tools that can automagically find these vulnerabilities and exploit them is what I blame. All these little holes no one worried about because "no one will ever bother looking there" are becoming a big deal.

Hopefully companies getting hacked left right and center will put the fear of the great fire cactus to the suits, and they in-turn will invest in real security.

Golden Lulz, not plain old gold

[Beautyon]

Umm no, its the Lulz age of hacking.

Re:Golden Lulz, not plain old gold

[Samantha Wright]

I'd give you a mod point, but instead I'm going to just try and highlight your point more clearly, since you seem to be accruing mod points anyway.

LulzSecurity is doing a bunch of high-profile, childish, silly things. That's all the weather there is to report. There's nothing else going on. There's no golden age, no silver age, no information age. Just one group being trollish, and otherwise, the attacks we're hearing about aren't that out of the norm. The exponential curve is right on schedule, as usual.

Hopefully, however, the LulzSec attitude—that you don't have to be important in order to be an interesting target for having your pants pulled down in front of the rest of the class—will drive organizations toward better security policies. TFA is obviously not interested in this aspect of things (and ends in a pessimistic note about people asking for help with test configurations) which is... not that surprising from PCPro.

Re:Hacking vs Cracking

[gman003]

I think it's time we give up on this. Sure, most of us know about the technical distinction between "hacking" and "cracking". But the mass public hasn't picked up on that, and even many hackers (old sense) now use the term hacking (new sense) for cracking.

At this point, trying to push the term "cracking" is futile. We won't change anyone's mind. In fact, all we'll do is come across as semantics-arguing dweebs. It's probably best to just accept that "hacking" now means "gaining unauthorized access to a system". It'll be easier to make a new term for "person who messes with computer systems for fun".