Research into the psychology of hackers has been going on ever since Cap’n Crunch cereal whistles were used to make free phone calls to anywhere in the world.
I saw the ABC News article…
“Hackers’ mind-set: They’ve done nothing wrong…Psychiatrists: Hackers Are “Rattlesnakes Without the Rattles””
and thought I’d see if they’ve come up with any new insights into the minds of cybercriminals.
Not really; the age-old view of many hackers to consider their hacking activities as not hurting any person, but just a justifiable activity against computer technology.
If they see an opportunity to exploit an vulnerability, many to most hackers basically view it as okay to do it for their gain.
However, this part of the story,
“Many cybercrooks are young men in the U.S. and Eastern Europe who think they’re doing the system a favor by exposing flaws and have no qualms about opportunities to exploit rich Westerners, according to police, researchers and hackers.”
is very outdated! This probably was the case back in the 80’s and into the 90’s, but more recent research studies show that hacking and related cybercrime has increasingly become criminals’ crimes of choice because of the high profit, comparative ease with which it is committed against unsecured systems and by social engineering un-trained computer users, as well as how rarely cyber criminals are caught.
However, I do believe that many-to-most cybercriminals have convinced themselves that they are doing nothing wrong.
I really like the ‘Rattlesnakes Without the Rattles” analogy!
Tags: ABC News, awareness and training, cybercrime, cybercriminals, hackers, Information Security, IT compliance, IT training, policies and procedures, privacy training, risk management, security training