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Do you feel the Lulz?

09
Jun
2011

Individuals across the globe have taken part in public humiliation of mega companies likes Sony, TV networks like PBS and Fox, political parties like the Conservative party of Canada, an FBI affiliate, and so on…

What do they do? Hack networks and expose sensitive information or simply deface the sites with fake news stories or anything else they might fancy at the moment.

The current theme they operate under is the ‘Lulz’ (Internet meme for laughing at somebody).

One has to wonder how companies that make millions of dollars of profit cannot protect their servers properly.

Fair enough, making money and other things may be their number one priority. However, it really hurts your reputation when someone can leak private information in a matter of minutes. Also, corporations have grown to a point where they don’t really have a good grasp of what they own and what its value is worth. (Although the PlayStation Network should have been more secure to begin with).

Cyber-attacks can be conducted quickly, know no borders and results can be shared with the world instantly.

So far, those ‘hacktivists’ have not been financially motivated. Their main goal is to prove some points and… have some fun. Not that I’m giving them bad ideas, but with the skills they have shown, they could have been really successful in earning loads of cash.

These hacks are highly publicized but in terms of cyber-attacks, this is really just the tip of the iceberg. This is scary… ordinary people are trusting corporations and governments with their sensitive data. And there is no much that you can do either… I’d like to think I could encrypt my own SIN number and then submit it to the government but that’s not how it works… I just have to hope their security team is doing their job properly…

Obviously, the actions done by Lulzsec & Co. are illegal. However, a large number of people seem to be supporting them in their claims to fight for transparency.

I hope companies will devote more budget for their security teams. But, as always, there is no such thing as a totally secure world. It’s just a matter of not being the lowest hanging fruit…

Jerome Segura

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