cyber adversary characterization auditing the hacker mind

[...]... varied, as they are skilled Recognizing and understanding these adversaries and the potential threats they pose is key to securing any network Cyber Adversary Characterization: Auditing the Hacker Mind answers:Who is the hacker, what do they want to hack, and why do they want to hack it More than just a collection of anecdotes and speculation, the authors provide recent case studies and profiling of cyber- terrorists... speak of the hacker mind, then, we have come to mean the mind of a miscreant motivated by a broad range of ulterior purposes.We don’t mean men and women who do original creative work, the best and brightest who cobble together new structures of possibility and deliver them to the world for the sheer joy of doing so.We mean script kiddies who download scripts written by others and execute them with the click... world, the kind in which alas we do not and never will live A perimeter is an illusion accepted by consensus and treated as if it is real www.syngress.com xvi Preface Hackers do not live in consensus reality Hackers see through it, hackers undermine; they exploit consensus reality Hackers see context as content— they see the skull behind the grin Hackers do not accept illusions .The best hackers create them... mythologized cyberspace as a new frontier, cyberspace hanging in the void above meat space, all legal distinctions would cease to exist in that bubble world, because hackers thought they were obliterated by new technologies Instead they were reformulated for the new space in which everyone was coming to live First the mountain men and the pioneers, then the merchants, and at last, the lawyers Once the lawyers... address is the motivation of the attacker, which is critical to the defense of the systems being attacked Because of the economics of defense, it is simply not possible to defend against all threats all of the time Smart defenders therefore want to spend their limited resources defending against the most likely attackers and threats.This requires them to step back from the purely technical aspects of their... and these are exploited to gain access.These attacks can come from any place on the planet, and they are usually chained through many systems to obscure their ultimate source .The vast majority of attacks in the world today are mostly this type, because they can be automated easily.They are also the easiest to defend against Physical attacks rely on weaknesses surrounding your system.These may take the. .. doesn’t know what the left is up to Because these attacks are voice-oriented, they can be performed from anyplace in the world where a phone line is available Just like the technical attack, skilled SE attackers will chain their voice call through many hops to hide their location.When criminals combine these attacks, they can truly be scary Only the most paranoid can defend against them, and the cost of... even the largest company Those who know me know that I love telling stories, and I am going to tell you one to illustrate how hard it is from the defenders standpoint to understand the motivations of an attacker It was the mid-90s and someone didn’t like the French.They thought they would be doing the world a favor if they made it so the French were not on the Internet at all.To accomplish this, they... attack and the damage it can cause.Who knows what the prospects for a cascade of failures across US infrastructures could lead to.What type of group or individual would exploit this vulnerability, and why would they do it? Cyber Adversary Characterization: Auditing the Hacker Mind sets the stage and cast www.syngress.com Foreword xxxi of characters for examples and scenarios such as this, providing the security... about the phone numbers to the dial-up modem bank, how you should configure your software, and if you think the technical people defending the system have the skills to keep you out.These attacks are generally performed over the phone after substantial research has been done on the target.They are hard to defend against in a large company because everyone generally wants to help each other out, and the . it, hackers undermine; they exploit consensus reality. Hackers see context as content— they see the skull behind the grin. Hackers do not accept illusions .The best hackers create them and lead the. 296 _Cyber_ Adv_FM.qxd 6/16/04 4:13 PM Page i This page intentionally left blank Tom Parker Matthew G. Devost Marcus H. Sachs Eric Shaw Ed Stroz AUDITING THE HACKER MIND Cyber Adversary Characterization 296 _Cyber_ Adv_FM.qxd. shark-filled seas. The mythology of hacking was permeated with the spirit of Coyote, the Trickster. Hackers see clearly into the arbitrariness of structures that others accept as the last word.They see