[NetBehaviour] Hackers not afraid of being caught.

[marc]

Honeynet Founder Lance Spitzner: “Hackers not afraid of being caught”

November 28th, 2006

By Martin Hack.

To learn the tools, tactics and motives involved in computer and network 
attacks, and share the lessons learned. (About the Honeynet Project)

Lance Spitzner is considered the leading light in the field of honeypot 
research. He is the founder of the Honeynet Project which currently 
consists of 15 organizations spread throughout the world. The Honeynet 
Project’s goal is to capture information on threats, analyze them and 
publish the findings. Realizing the importance of this project the US 
Government awarded him a grant that allows him and small to team to 
focus exclusively on the project.

I had an opportunity to chat with Lance about his perspective on the 
current security landscape.

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What are the biggest changes you have seen over the last couple of years?

Years ago it was hackers who were doing it for the bragging rights, now 
it’s criminals. The motivation has changed, hacking is now profitable 
and there’s so much money to be made with very little risk to the actual 
hackers.

Interestingly enough IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is still being utilized 
to start attacks and for communications amongst the bad guys. There are 
more secure means of communications available but they are still using 
IRC. They are not worried about being caught they are blatantly doing 
these things out in the open. Though the good ones are communicating 
less which makes it harder to track them. Their focus has shifted to 
make money in which case they naturally don’t want to make a name for 
themselves, so there’s less bragging involved, less communication.

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