As more businesses and people head for the convenience and economy of the cloud, more learn that hackers also make the transition. Recent
high profile attacks on Sony, Microsoft and Amazon should offer enough cause for caution. If these behemoth corporations which understand Internet security and have plenty of money and know-how get hacked, the possibility exists that small business cloud resources can also fall prey to hackers.
Hackers, corporate IT meet in the cloud
For the cloud to work its magic, applications and their data must live there, leaving them exposed to 24×7 attacks. The added exposure helps diminish the value of the security measures in place in the cloud. Estimates suggest the American IT community will spend more than $53 billion over the next five years boosting security while creating a new generation worthy of the cloud. To get in on the action, business interests such as the EC-Council aim to promote cryptology training and certification to buttress the security effort
Prime hacking targets: Celebrities
If anyone needs cryptology, it would be the recent string of celebrities who have recently appeared sans clothing courtesy of zealous hackers. we could ask why people keep nude photos of themselves on their phones, but that wouldn’t have much to do with hacking. Hackers seem to know who has interesting photos… or is it that they just hack all celebrities until they find something interesting? Anyway, Scarlett Johansson has the wrong idea. Rather than suing the hackers for downloading pics of her lovely, vivacious body, why not just avoid taking nude photos of herself? OR – I hope I am wrong here – MAYBE IT’S NORMAL TO HAVE NAKED PHOTOS ON YOUR PHONE. If that’s the case, I’m abnormal (I just checked to make sure).
If rapper Kreayshawn has nude pics of herself on her phone too, this might be more of a trend than most of us think. Do male celebrities insist on seeing the book without the cover before they buy it? Do men keep nude pics of themselves on their phone too? Is this the new mating ritual: trade nude pics before hooking up? Do regular, non-celebrity people do this too? I have many questions about this.
With wireless networks set to invest another $25 billion to $50 billion over the next few years, hackers will have to work hard to keep up. Meanwhile, the rise of security jobs for hackers might fuel more threats to security. Maybe the incentive of finding great-paying legitimate work is fueling the hacker epidemic.
Hackers for hire
If Sony had hired the hacker that took out their copy protection scheme and not taken him to court, it probably would never experienced the famous PlayStation Network outage that forever tarnished its reputation as a competent Internet player. Instead, that hacker now works for Facebook. Obama has obviously learned better than this; nearly one-quarter of all hackers work for the United States Federal Government. George Bush seemed to keep it secret, but Obama doesn’t mind that the world knows that he’s overtly recruiting hackers.
I bet I could get a cushy, fireproof government job too if I can snag some nude photos, but with my luck, I’d find pics of people no one would ever want to look at.
I guess all the celebrity hacking started with Paris Hilton and went downhill from there.
The wrong message
Hackers will never go away as long as people get good jobs in exchange for hacking Call of Duty, iPhones, and others who now have gone legit. Of course, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and others started on the Dark Side too…. but does everyone have to start out on the Dark Side to finally land a decent job? Heck, in Europe, hackers even have their own political parties.
