WEBVTT - RERUN: Hacking for Dollars 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:14.040 stuff works dot com. Hey there, everybuddy, Welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:17.400 I'm Jonathan Strickland. I'm your host and the executive producer 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:19.599 of this show there at how Stuff Works, and I 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:22.080 heeart radio and a love of all things tech, and 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.320 we are doing another classic episode of tech Stuff hacking 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:28.639 for dollars. I got to talk with Shannon Morse of 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:32.360 Hack five and we talked all about how hackers make 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:37.240 money and both in in legal and nefarious ways. And 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:40.159 this is going to be the last of our classic 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:43.199 episodes covering my vacation time, I will be back in 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:46.000 the studio recording brand new episodes. So I thank you 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:47.640 very much for your patience. I hope you guys have 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:51.000 enjoyed this look back on some past episodes of tech Stuff. 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:57.040 Let's join past Jonathan and Shannon right now. Hi, how 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.840 are you Jonathan, I'm doing great. How are you? I'm awesome. Yeah, 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:02.520 thank you so much for having me on. This is 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:04.440 a great show and I love listening to it, so 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:07.240 I'm super happy to be on. Yeah, excellent. Now, this 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:09.280 is of course the second time we've had you on, 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:13.520 so I will work very hard to to increase that number. 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:14.880 I want to at least get us up to double 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:18.959 digits with that. But I got Shannon on the show 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:21.959 specifically to talk about an area that she talks about 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:25.840 a lot, the realm of hacking, and specifically I wanted 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.640 to do kind of an episode about how do hacker, 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:30.160 how do you make money? How do you make a 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:33.639 career out of hacking? And uh and really to frame 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:35.840 this conversation, I think one of the most important things 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:39.000 to do is to sort of define your terms. And 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:41.800 as it turns out, the term hacker is is actually 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.720 a very broad term that can apply to a lot 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.120 of different things, and not all of them are that 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:52.640 nefarious evil infiltrate a system and steal all the corporate 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:57.000 secrets kind of approach to hacking that Hollywood often presents 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:59.720 right right exactly. I actually asked this question to a 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:02.360 lot of people, especially when I first meet them. Since 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.000 I'm so closely affiliated with a lot of the info 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:08.480 set community, I want to surround myself with positive people. 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:12.639 So you'll notice with the hacker definition, you can either 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:14.880 get a very negative vibe from somebody or a very 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:18.200 positive vibe. Oftentimes, with the negative vibe, you'll get somebody 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:20.760 who says, oh, that's the person who stole my credit 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:23.320 card data when I went to a restaurant the other day. 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:26.240 But on the positive side, you'll get somebody that says, oh, 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.160 they're the kind of people that will like break something 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:31.040 apart and then put it back together in a way 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:33.320 that it wasn't supposed to be put back together to 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:36.880 make it do something cool. And that's a hack in 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.720 in mainstream. Uh So that's the way I see it. 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:43.720 I see hackers as being people who um reverse engineer 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:47.200 different software, different hardware. It could just be a bicycle, 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:50.000 for example, and put it back together in a way 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.760 to make it harder, better, faster, and stronger. Nice the 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.720 old daft punk approach, of course, Yeah, I agree entirely. Uh. 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:01.120 The the original term hacker was really all about people 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:06.760 who have almost an insatiable curiosity to learn how stuff works. 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:10.680 Oddly enough, I share that quality, having worked at how 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:14.359 stuff works for a decade. Uh. But yeah, to understand 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:16.919 how it works and then to make stuff do things 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:21.639 it wasn't necessarily intended to do. Not for nefarious purposes necessarily, 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:25.760 although that could clearly be an application, but just for 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.840 curiosity's sake. Can can I take these elements that are 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.240 meant to do this one thing and do something completely 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:36.040 transformative with it, whether it is hardware or software. And 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:38.640 we've seen some really cool stuff come out of that. 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:40.800 I mean, I would argue that a lot of the 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:43.960 things you see in the cosplay world and the steampunk world, 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:48.720 those are all taking elements of hacking. Maker Fair is 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:51.800 really just a hacker's paradise when you get down to it, 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:54.680 especially for hardware hacks. Absolutely, I'm kind of sad I'm 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:57.440 gonna miss Make Her Fair this year. I haven't been 0:03:57.480 --> 0:03:59.360 to one yet. I've been to a small one here 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:03.440 in Atlanta, very very modest maker Fair. Everyone there was 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:07.240 great and passionate and intelligent, but it was, you know, 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:09.400 a much smaller scale than something you would see in 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:12.400 the Bay Area. But but that's the kind of thing 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:15.880 that hacker means to me. Now that being said, in 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.960 this episode, we're really going to be focusing on on 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:22.599 sort of the computer oriented, really the software side of hacking. 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:24.920 Uh And a large part of it's going to be 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:28.200 on the the the bad guy, the naughty bits as 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:31.159 I call it in our notes about hacking, simply to 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:35.080 talk about what are the ways that hackers cause or 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:39.080 the malicious hackers cause problems? How do they expect to 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:43.120 profit from that? And also that, well, we'll look at 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.520 ways that hackers who don't follow that path, who are 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:50.360 looking to help people, not hurt people, how do they 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:54.240 make a living? Because it's one of those things where 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:55.960 you kind of take it for granted when you see 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.039 the Hollywood depiction of a hacker, the person sitting down. 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:02.080 Usually they're sitting at a keyboard and for some reason 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:06.800 they're monitor only is monochromatic green. Yes, that's so true. Well, 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:10.039 they're using the old Apple to E terminals. Terminals are 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:13.120 actually written and green oftentimes, but you can change the 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:15.720 colors to rainbow colors if you choose. That is a hack, 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:19.000 it's a real life hack. Yeah, yeah, And usually you 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:22.120 see them sitting down and then they cause some sort 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:26.960 of mischief, sometimes bordering on sabotage. But then you when 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:29.520 you think about it outside the context of that scene, 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:34.440 you think, how did they expect to profit from this? 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:37.400 So that's kind of what we're looking at. Yeah, Because 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.920 it's always important to me to reiterate to that there 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:43.120 are always going to be two sides of a coin. 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:45.320 To everything in life. Of course, there are going to 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:48.400 be bad guys in the realm in the world who 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.120 do nefarious hacks, but there's also a lot of good 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:54.520 guys too, And personally, for me, the reason why I'm 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:57.160 so interested in researching this is because it has made 0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:01.000 me a much more privacy and security guard person. I've 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:03.520 gotten a lot better at my own protections online, and 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.039 I feel like if somebody else can understand what a 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.120 hacker does on the bad side as well as the 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:10.440 good side, they can better protect themselves too, And that's 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:13.080 what I've always tried to teach people. Yeah, I think 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:15.440 all you have to really do is attend one def 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.000 con and really have that driven home. I have not 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:22.240 yet gone to a def con, mostly because I don't 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.320 know that I could part with my smartphone for that 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.800 long and I certainly wouldn't take it with me. Bring 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:32.240 a burner phone, you'll be fine. Yeah, that that's me Jonathan, 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:35.359 the guy who carries the burner. Uh. It makes sense, 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:37.279 I mean, when you're doing something like that. So, for 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:39.960 those who don't know, def Con is a large hacker 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:44.920 based conference largely looking at the realm of information security 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:50.120 UM and often they will you'll have entire presentations dedicated 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:53.840 to showing off vulnerabilities and security, again not necessarily so 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.120 that people can take advantage of them, but rather to 0:06:56.200 --> 0:07:00.080 raise awareness and to kind of force the hands of 0:06:59.880 --> 0:07:03.760 the parties that are responsible for that software to take 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:06.880 action and fix a problem. Right Like, that was what 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:11.720 we saw with the hack about remotely taking control of 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:15.880 a person's vehicle. Uh specifically Jeep was really having that issue. 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:18.720 Those one of those things where the researchers were saying, look, 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:21.960 we're bringing this to light, not so that we can 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:25.120 create an era where people are terrified of their vehicles 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:27.120 that someone's going to take remote control of their car, 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:31.040 but rather to really drive home the fact that the 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:35.040 information security is now it's important everywhere. It's not just 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.640 your phone, it's not just your computer. As the Internet 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:42.600 of Things continues to blossom, it's everything. Yes, I agree, 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:46.080 And in that sense, those researchers were trying to use 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:49.920 something the old school term is called responsible disclosure, where 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:53.520 they explain some kind of vulnerability that they found to 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.600 the company in hopes that the company will fix this 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.680 problem before it becomes mainstream and before it gets out 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:03.520 into the wild. In the case of Jeep. I believe, 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:05.920 if my memory serves me right, that Jeep did not 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:10.280 necessarily release a patch for this vulnerability. So then the 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.360 researchers decided to go out publicly about the information that 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.240 they found, and then Jeep decided to fix it once 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:19.640 everybody else knew about it, right, And then sometimes that's 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.280 what it takes. And then and I've had the same 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.760 discussion offline with a mutual friend of ours, Brian Brushwood. 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.000 Brian is a stage magician. He has a show called 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:31.960 Scam School. It's all about social engineering. One of the 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:34.800 things I have talked about with Brian is that his show, 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:38.320 he often shows how to do certain types of scams 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:42.400 or tricks, but they're mostly in the bar bet world, right, Like, 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.520 not stuff that you would do to ruin someone's life, 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:47.160 but something that you know you might want to you 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:50.480 might win a free beer that way. Totally use some 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:53.280 of those myself. Yeah, And he showed off. He had 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:57.120 an episode where he showed off this guy who had 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:01.959 was demonstrating a well known vulnerableity of a popular bike 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:04.200 lock that has been off the market for a couple 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.800 of years because of this vulnerability. But that particular vulnerability 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:11.040 meant that you could use a regular plastic pen, remove 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:13.959 the pen part of the pen, use the casing, and 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:18.520 jam them into the lock and pop the lock open hole. Right. 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:21.520 And so people were complaining in the comments. They were saying, 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.760 you're you're, you're publicizing this vulnerability. And I said, guess what, 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:29.400 the bad guys already know about this vulnerability. What they're 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.360 doing is publicizing it to a public that might be 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.959 still vulnerable to it so that they don't fall victim. 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:38.920 And that, to me is a very important part of 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.320 hackers across the board. They they serve a very important 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:47.720 purpose to alert folks to potential dangers before it gets 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:51.920 too late. Yeah. Absolutely, And and you're those hackers are 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:55.640 the people that are generally working to make a better 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:59.400 world for consumers, a better about a private and secure 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.640 world for consumers. But then, of course, on the other hand, 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:05.559 are the batties. Yeah, let's talk about some of them. 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:09.040 So I kind of gave some weird little titles for 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:11.600 this when I was typing it up, because in the 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:13.840 middle of a week, I get bored. Shannon has to 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:16.160 be honest, And so when I was making an outline 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:18.120 kind of for us to work from, I started coming 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:21.800 up with goofy subtitles. So this whole section is titled 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.199 the Naughty Bits in our Notes, and the first one 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:29.480 is malware moo law as in people who make money 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:33.920 through the development or distribution of malware. And malware, as 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.480 I've said on this show many times in order to 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.480 define it, it's really software that is intended to do 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:42.360 something that is ultimately harmful to the person who runs 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:46.640 that software on their machine. It covers a wide array 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:51.000 of different sub categories, like, uh, you know, this is 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:52.959 the sort of term that we normally would have in 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:55.800 the old days just called a computer virus, But computer 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:59.320 virus is a very specific thing, and malware covers more 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:03.720 stuff than just viruses, also worms and all sorts of stuff. Yeah, 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:06.760 there's there's malware for Java and Flash. If you still 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.480 have Flash installed, I highly recommend that you uninstall it 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.520 if you don't need it. There's malware for browsers. There's 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:16.000 malware for advertisements online for sponsors that you'll see like 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.400 on on different websites. That was a very recent problem 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.400 that a lot of news publications had with yeah, big 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:24.880 name news publicly. Yeah, so that was a big one. 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:28.040 But you'll see maw'd all over the place, and luckily 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.520 we do have anti malware software that we can use 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:33.679 to protect our computers from it, and we can also 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:36.800 block certain ports on the routers that can hopefully protect 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:39.760 you from Mauer. But there's also a lot of cases 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:45.080 where maware is distributed and built so quickly that a 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:48.960 lot of those anti Mauer software are not updated quick enough. 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:50.720 So in that case, we need to do the best 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.719 that we can to protect ourselves and keep Mauer from 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.760 getting out from the deep web. Yeah, you know, it 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:00.680 used to be, uh that you really all you needed 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:02.920 to worry about was just don't go to the more 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:07.120 seedy elements of the web, and you were generally all right, right, Yeah, 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:10.839 It's kind of like avoiding a bad neighborhood. Like, obviously, 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:13.840 if you don't want to get robbed, there's certain neighborhoods 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:16.320 that you should probably shouldn't walk around in by yourself 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.200 at night, right, And this is kind of similar in 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:21.960 that case where you avoid the deep web unless you 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:24.400 really want to be on somebody's like hit list or 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.120 something like that. Yeah. Yeah, if you're if you suddenly 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:29.400 think that you want to come across as a big shot. Look, 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.439 if you're not a big shot. Don't do that. It's 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:34.240 kind of like, kind of like walking up to someone 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:36.720 who works in a carnival and claiming that you're with 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:38.480 it and for it. If you don't know what that means, 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:41.440 you do not say that. Okay, I think I just 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:46.480 gave terrible advice to an entire population of listeners. Don't don't. 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:50.319 Don't talk to Carney's unless you are one. Alright, so, uh, 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:53.080 and I love you Carney's, I love you all. So. 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:56.480 The the thing that we're getting across, though, is that 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.719 today that's not as big a guarantee as it used 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:02.720 to be. Right like ten years ago, you'd say, look, 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:06.840 just be careful. Don't download unusual files. Don't don't run 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:11.320 a file that's linked in your email without checking it 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.360 out first. Don't don't, you know, be careful opening up 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:17.520 emails from things that you don't recognize. Be careful with 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:22.600 PDF files. Be careful with stuff, especially unsolicited stuff that 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:26.600 has come to you, because that raises the chances that's 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:29.480 something hinky is going on. It doesn't necessarily mean it's 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:34.000 definitely a problem, but it's potentially a problem, and it's 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:36.720 better to be safe than sorry. Make sure you have 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:40.079 good and uh anti virus software on your computer, make 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:42.240 sure you have a nice strong firewall, all of these 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:45.720 kind of things. Those used to be pretty good at 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:49.559 keeping of the malware away from you if you were 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:54.319 being a fairly responsible ned is in these days, they 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:57.920 definitely help these days. These days, the attacks are sometimes 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:00.600 getting like in the case of the advertise eismans on 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:05.200 news sites. These are attacks that are going through avenues 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:08.040 that you want at one point would have considered perfectly safe. 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.200 Not that it's happening all the time, but the fact 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:15.559 that it can happen tells you that it requires an 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.960 extra level of vigilance beyond what we used to say 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:23.080 was was sufficient. Yeah. Absolutely, A data collection for a 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:27.720 lot of this matare is extremely Uh. It's high sensitive 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:32.440 in the fact that a user's data can get so 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.160 much money on the on the deep web, so much 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:39.560 money really, particularly a collection of user data. That's where 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.440 the big money is, right. I did an episode once 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.200 where we tried to break down how much is your 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:50.160 personal information worth? Yeah, it really depends. It depends upon 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.000 what information you're talking about, Like how extensive is that 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.640 profile on a person? But yeah, it's not much in 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:58.720 the grand scheme of things like, to you, it's worth 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.760 a lot right you a person, Shannon, you as a person, 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.240 that information is worth a lot of money to you 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.240 because it's who you are. To someone else, it's worth 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:11.560 pennies on the dollar, really, depending upon depending upon the 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:16.600 amount of information. But the smellware often is giving hackers 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:21.040 access to massive amounts of info about a huge number 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:24.960 of people, and in numbers there is more value, and 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:27.840 that's where they will sell that. Sometimes they sell it 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:31.600 to companies that are just interested in getting information so 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:35.200 that they can do targeted advertising. So it might be 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:40.160 that the ultimate use of your information isn't as bad 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:42.040 as it could be. It just means you're going to 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:45.920 get some ads, but still not fun to think about 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:48.200 and to think that you know, now these companies have 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:51.640 access to information about you that you probably would rather 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:55.920 they not have, particularly in targeted advertising. The famous story 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.480 about target when they started sending ads to a young 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:03.160 lady that were related to pregnancy, and then her dad 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:05.480 got really really ticked off about it. But it turned 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:08.720 out that little girl was pregnant, yeah, and that it 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:11.520 was it was because the algorithms had picked up through 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.560 her search habits that she was pregnant based upon the 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:17.640 search terms she was putting in, and so they proactively 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.560 sent her some coupons for pregnancy related items. The dad 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.280 got very upset. Then the dad ended up apologizing to Targets, 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:26.760 saying that he was unaware at the time of the 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:30.320 full situation. Well, in that case, it was search algorithms. 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:33.520 It wasn't a hacker who had gained access to stuff 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:36.040 and then sold it. But there are other cases where 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:39.800 that does happen, where you know, just a database of info, 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.120 and a lot of times they will release this malware 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:46.560 in something that's called an exploit kit. So generally, these 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:50.160 exploit kits are like a batch of similar malware that 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.360 will work across several different platforms. So that whether that's 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:56.240 several different types of software like job and flash, or 0:16:56.280 --> 0:17:00.160 several different browsers. It could be several different operating systems too, 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.400 So you might see an exploit kit that works on 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:09.360 Lenox four but also works on Windows XP up through 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:12.560 eight or something like that. Right, And what's crazy is 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:14.960 that when you start looking at I mean, this is 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:16.600 one of the things that hackers do, right, They'll look 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:18.960 at operating systems and what the market penetration is for 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:21.479 those systems because that that's that shows you where your 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:24.520 target rich environment is. Right, So if you have Windows seven, 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:30.399 guess what you are prime target for for malware because 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:34.800 that is by far the largest um that that has 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.600 the greatest market share of any operating system right now, 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:44.080 Windows XP still it's number three, number three, and it 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:46.800 has not been supported by Window formed by Microsoft for 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:51.199 two years. This, by the way, bad thing. If you 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.160 want to be really secure with your your computer information, 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:55.919 you don't want to be using and operate system that 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:58.399 no longer gets support from the company that made it, 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:02.600 because because that means no vulnerabilities will be patched. From 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:04.639 that moment forward, you're pretty much on your own. You 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:07.399 have gone into the dark forest, and you forgot to 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:11.720 bring your flashlight. It's pretty dangerous. UM. One of the 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.040 things that you kind of uh that that I think 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:16.480 it leads in from what you were saying before with 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:21.000 these exploit kits. One of the most terrifying aspects of 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:23.719 this type of malware and and the fact that that 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.600 people can use it for nefarious purposes and monetary gain, 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.200 is that you also have a population of people who 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.160 don't even understand how the malware works. They don't even 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:38.240 Script kitties is what I'm getting at. Script kitties, that's 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:42.720 the term we use for people who are, uh, they're 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:47.040 benefiting from the the work that hackers have done. Hackers 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.720 are the ones who are actually putting together the software. 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:52.760 They're the ones who have identified the vulnerability and then 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.640 exploited it in some way. Script kitties are the ones 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:59.320 who essentially they're given a set of skeleton keys, and 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:03.560 they didn't make the skeleton keys, they're just using them. Um. 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:06.960 And it's scary because you don't need a level of expertise. 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:09.280 You might think, oh, well, I'm kind of safe from 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:12.160 hackers because how many people are actually hackers? How many 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:16.120 people really know how this system works. Well, you don't 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.040 have to really know how the system works. If you 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:21.240 have a tool that exploits a vulnerability. Oh absolutely. Although 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:24.080 I really hate the word script kittie, I will put 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:27.080 it out there because I feel like if you're interested 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:31.240 in information security, and if you're interested in becoming a 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:35.000 good hacker, then you do start somewhere. And everybody is 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:37.120 going to start with the easy tools that are out 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:40.080 there and that are available for free. For example, one 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:42.240 thing that I learned how to use a couple of 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:45.280 years back was this tool called wire shark. It easily 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.479 lets you see everything that's happening on your wireless network, 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:51.879 or you can use it for um, any computers that 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:54.280 are on your on your network, like behind your router, 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:56.679 so you can see everything that's going on and you 0:19:56.720 --> 0:20:01.439 don't necessarily have to learn or understand what's going on 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:04.600 behind it to be able to read what's on your 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.560 screen happening right in front of you. I think it's 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:11.840 really important though, for people who might be called script 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:16.120 kitties to look at as being beneficial and that they 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:19.280 can grow from that process. They can start from being 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.000 a beginner and say, okay, well I need to understand 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:24.280 the theory. Now I can move on from being a 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.800 script kittie quote unquote to becoming somebody who is an 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:32.240 expert in some kind of information security out there. Yeah. 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:34.640 I when I think of the term script kitty, in 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:36.760 my mind, it's a very it's a subset of the 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.840 people that typically get labeled as such. That subset being 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:43.840 people who have little to no interest in actually learning 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:48.320 how to hack or program. Uh, people who want a 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:53.560 very very fast track way to gain either a reputation 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:57.280 by being the person who took down a system by 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:00.879 whatever means, or by making a whole lot of money 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:04.680 really fast for relatively little effort. Those are the ones 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:07.040 I specifically think of when I think of script kitty. 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:09.600 But you are absolutely right, you have to start somewhere 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:12.160 if you're interested in that is. I'm kind of defensive 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:14.480 with that because I I was called a script katie 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.960 when I first started up started off learning about hacking 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:21.520 and information security. People would be like, oh, she's just 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:23.560 a script katty, and I'd be like, well, I actually 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:25.359 want to understand the theory. I want to learn how 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:27.360 to program. I want to learn how to code. I'm 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:30.119 no longer called that because I have learned how to 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:32.960 write certain kinds of code. I have learned how to program. 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.240 I can make my r do we know, do whatever 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:37.960 I want. So at this point in my stage, I've 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:41.760 surpassed that moment of being a nube and I've gone 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:46.760 on to learning things and being able to understand specific 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:48.719 tests and get them to do what I want them 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:51.840 to do without finding tutorials online. Yea, so now I 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:55.000 make my own tutorials. Seeing Now that's nice because when 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:57.119 I started at how stuff works. They call me that 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:01.160