HACKERS: Hackers

Hackers Sir Jason David Chliszczyk Excelsior College

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Abstract Today we delve into the world of cyber terrorists of old through the engrossing movie Hackers. With the assigned task given we will be the digital forensics team for the digital crime scene expressed through this movie. By first setting the scene to answering assigned questions a conclusion will be drawn involving discussions, implications, and recommendations based on our findings. Now with no further ado lets plunge onwards to the introduction. Keywords: cyber terrorist, ethics, forensics

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Introduction A proper introduction will be had whilst the tale of the characters which comprise this movie unfolds. Dads troubling past involving the crashing of 1507 computers due to a virus comes back to haunt him when he becomes the target of the Ellingston Mineral Company. Kate involves herself with illegal activities of her own during the initial meeting with Dade and throughout the movie with such actions as criminal penetration and social engineering. Joey, Cereal Killer, and Phreak comprise the rest of the Hacker Crew and turn to phreaking, criminal penetration, and virus use to pass their spare time. On the other side of the coin are Lauren and The Plague employed by Ellingston Mineral Company whom mascaraed around as helpful employees to the F.B.I., but are in fact guilty of the salami slicing worm and the DaVinci virus. Lets look at these activities in a bit more depth. Answering Questions The nature of the crime. Dade as a child exhibiting criminal behavior causes the crash of 1507 computers with a virus that he devised himself. According to this article by The Associated Press, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-04-20/internet-woesinfected-pcs/54446044/1?csp=mostpopular, Hackers infected a network of probably more than 570,000 computers worldwide. They took advantage of vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Windows operating system to install malicious software on the victim computers. This turned off antivirus updates and changed the way the computers reconcile website addresses behind the scenes on the Internet's domain name system. Dade could have used a similar method of exploiting the computers vulnerabilities to insert the virus to cause such a crash. This quote being used to establish the far reaching nature of a virus when dealing with networks shows the damage that

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they can cause. He did receive legal repercussions in the form of a $45,000 fine to his parents and the loss of computer & phone use till he reached the mature age of eighteen due to his status as a minor. This quote from CP Tech shows the leniency on minors in the court system, the arrests would have little impact in abating Anonymous activities because many of the accused hackers are minors and [Anonymous] is widely dispersed geographically. This helps to prove that the hacking lifestyle becomes hard to leave behind and Dade exemplifies this with his social engineering tactics to gain control of a nearby television network seen at the following site, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G3NT91AWUE. According to the class on page 589, Social engineering is a skill by which an unknown person gains the trust of someone inside your organization. This constitutes exactly what Dad did by masquerading as a higher up during a crisis. Joey on the other hand gets into a different sort of criminal mischief by hacking into the Gibson of Ellingston Mineral Company. This effort came to fruition due to the use of a weak password on behalf of Lauren, God. This being done after the following conversation with his friends, PHREAK- Alright, what are the three most commonly used passwords? JOEYLove, secret, and uh, sex. But not in that order, necessarily, right? CEREAL- Yeah but don't forget God. System operators love to use God. It's that whole male ego thing that became the moment when using the password for the first time. The Plague devised a salami slicing worm that he desired to be the tool to embezzle millions from his company that Joey downloaded part of. To cover this up the DaVinci virus also came to the picture to incriminate the hackers. The most ethically challenging part of the movie comes in towards the end of the movie when Cereal hacks into the television network to broadcast the defense of the hackers seen here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=pm_IrERv6H4#t=5498s.

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Incident response. Using the aforementioned examples from the movie we shall now look at the reflex of those involved. The main factions involved are the Ellingston Mineral Company and the Hacker Crew. It will be important to see both sides of the coin for the unity of information necessitates proper justice. Chain of custody & incident response procedures and kit. The first incident involving Dade at a young age, to piece it together, probably went something like this. After the disaster on the systems the network security departments switched into disaster recovery mode. The CIRTs kicked in and did the incident handling which lead to the reporting to the authorities. With evidence in hand they went to court and passed their judgment on Dade. Unfortunately the social engineering tactic used by him during the television network incident didnt get discovered so no handling. In Joeys case a lot happened in reference to the other incidents. From the script we receive first response, A system operator at Ellingson Mineral Corporation, a large oil company, notices the intrusion. He gets on the phone. This constitutes the point when an event becomes an incident. From the detection and identification we go to response and reporting when The Plague, head of network security, gets summoned while asleep from his coworker. Isolation and containment come into play when they see Joey concentrating his efforts on downloading the garbage file. A trace is ordered and Joeys location discovered. From this The Plague knows that this incident will go to court and handles the evidence thusly by doing something unethical and designing the DaVinci virus. The F.B.I. are notified of the hack and warrants issued for the arrest of Joey and his associates whom are finally exonerated by Cereal who unethically hacks into the news to broadcast his message and bring ethical justice. The Plague and Lauren then become the criminals and are apprehended by the F.B.I. in order to stand trial for their crimes.

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Forensic tools. The tool being focused on would be the real time analytics of the network security personnel at Ellingston Mineral Company. The aforementioned detection of the incident warrants attention. From the script again we see the following, Uh, the accounting subdirectory in the Gibson is working really hard. We got one person online, the workload is enough for like ten users. I think we've got a hacker. Figure 8 on the following .pdf shows the workload increase due to hacker activity, http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved =0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi% 3D10.1.1.3.2790%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&ei=cMiNUN6GH_PryAGqIDYCg&usg=AFQjCNECzcQTr8ZX468jFw3Z5rdAKQb9Q&sig2=ZEiKBnyGx5R0YjYObWzMpw. By making a notable difference on the network activity the incident catches attention. These days computer systems use the aid of programs to help monitor network activity such as, http://www.sleuthkit.org/, which is an open source digital investigation tool. Prevention. Proper education always does well to quench the thirst of the hacker. This relates to up to date antivirus protection like that found at, http://www.avast.com/eneu/index. Having the knowledge, skills, and software will prevent most problems before they begin. When dealing with social engineering an employee should always error on the side of caution especially with an unfamiliar voice on the phone. Naivet will get you no good in the workplace and such ignorance should be replaced with knowledge of your higher ups. Under the Countermeasures section on pg. 337 of our class text we find reference to education being the cornerstone of secure passwords. Had the password God been replaced by something more complex then I doubt Joey would have been able to gain access to the Ellingston Mineral

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Companys computer. The news broadcast hack brings an ethical dilemma to the forefront of our discussion. Had this not occurred then the wrong people could have gone to jail so in my eyes it should not have been prevented. Discussions, Implications, & Recommendations Here the information gathered will be shown in the light of philosophical wisdom. Kant, John Stuart Mill, and Descartes will each play their part concerning the legal and ethical value inherent in the movie. This movie weaves precariously through the hacking world of truth in light of information gathering. Who are the real criminals? The Hacker Crew and their various exploits at worst did not cause any financial damage to anyone. In fact their hacking into the television network at the end of the movie took from Robin Hood in order to prove their own innocence when all other measures failed. The Plague paraded around in the ethical hacker guise like a wolf in sheep clothing. He gained the trust of the F.B.I. through his position at the Ellingston Mineral Company to cover his dark plot to steal millions. The white hat and black hat became grey to me. Kant uses his maxim, Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end. In light of this it would be hard to justify social engineering since the end, the password, constitutes the main reason to speak to a certain individual. John Stuart Mill advocates degrees of pleasure in Utilitarianism. This relates to the movie as it is what the constitution is based on so legal basis takes priority. While not leaving out ethical concerns the term, Power to the people now makes sense in so far as the government doesnt deviate from its original tenets. With such philosophy the true and proper consequence should be the one that brings the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of people. To hear a crowd rejoice in response to your actions defines this clearly as a mental image. Its like feeling the

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hearts of all those involved at the end of the movie when The Hacker Crew are exonerated. The majority stood and decided that the evidence played more in their favor. Descartes philosophy relied on building from the solid foundation of thought itself. I think, therefore I am brings him to the idea of perfection that cant be denied, like his own existence. This idea of truth leads us all to a greater becoming of self-awareness. Such an idea pushed The Hacker Crew in their efforts for justice in the face of being wronged. This, simply put, constitutes the free man spoken.

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References Amazon (2012). General format. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Hackers/dp/B0030MAGZO/ref=sr_1_1?s=instantvideo&ie=UTF8&qid=1350869300&sr=1-1&keywords=hackers AVAST Software a.s. (2012). General format. Retrieved from http://www.avast.com/en-eu/index Carrier, Brian (2012). General format. Retrieved from http://www.sleuthkit.org/ Cyberspike (1997). General format. Retrieved from http://www.freeinfosociety.com/site.php?postnum=402 Lander (2012). General format. Retrieved from http://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/kant.html Passwall.com (2006). General format. http://mike.passwall.com/uselesstrivia/hackers.html Skirry, Justin (2008). General format. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/descarte/

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The Christian Post (2012). General format. Retrieved from http://www.christianpost.com/news/anonymous-hackers-arrested-inspain-can-sony-mastercard-and-other-corporates-finally-breathe-51057/ Wilson, Fred (2007). General format. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill/ USA Today (2012). General format. Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-04-20/internetwoes-infected-pcs/54446044/1?csp=mostpopular Youtube (2012). General format. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=pm_IrERv6H4#t=5498s Youtube (2012). General format. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G3NT91AWUE