I’ve just finished reading Kevin Mitnick’s biography – Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker
While it might be a biography it reads like a thriller.
Mitnick was a hacker, but he broke into systems out of curiosity – not to make money or do harm. The book covers his escapades as well as touching on some of the crazy myths attributed to him.
It’s worth reading for a number of reasons, but for me one of the salient aspects was the social engineering techniques he employed. As I read the book I kept finding myself thinking about how someone could use those techniques to do serious damage against a company. And yet as you read the book you find that you cannot but side with Mitnick.
These days, unfortunately, most of the hackers you come across are trouble. They break into systems and do serious damage. Oddly enough Mitnick now works as a security consultant to help companies secure their businesses from attacks 🙂
