I recently attended the Continuum Navigate 2017 and was excited to hear a keynote presentation by Kevin Mitnick, get a book autographed and spend a few minutes talking with him. For those of you that don't know the name, Kevin Mitnick is the most famous hacker in the world. For a period of time he was on the FBI's most wanted list and actually spent some time in prison as a result of hacking into 40 major companies. Unlike the hackers you hear about today, Kevin hacked for the thrill and the challenge of it. He didn't do it to steal or damage or destroy the data that he got access to, he did it for the challenge. Like many of the other hackers today he was and is a master of Social Engineering and says that it's much easier to use that method instead of technology to hack into systems.
When you can convince humans to give you the information you need to get into computer systems and networks it's much faster and more efficient to go that route instead having to use technology even though it's available. Kevin discussed how ransomeware attacks and a multitude of other threats are just waiting for an ill informed or unsuppecting human to click on a poisoned web link or email to infect their computers and networks. Kevin didn't only discuss the Social Engineering aspect of hacking, he demonstrated a number of electronic tools used to capture and duplicate HID RFID access cards and other forms of electronic access. As someone that is focused on protecting our clients from cyber security threats the information he shared was extremely valuable to our efforts.
I have to also mention that since his dubious past Kevin is now the CEO for Mitnick Security Consulting where he is a trusted security consultant for world government and Fortune 500 companies.
Thank you Kevin for sharing such valuable information and insights with us at Continuum Navigate 2017.
