Vigilante Hackers as Heroes, but at What Cost?
February 3, 2010 by
ADMIN By John-Patrick Skaar, Network Security Expert at Alcatel-Lucent
In the online world where personal information in extremely large volumes is merchandise for organized crime, where law enforcement is more focused on building war-rooms and appointing cyber security tzars, and where everyone leaves a digital footprint, cyber vigilantes have become something like worshiped heroes.
I am not going to solve any of the above issues, not in this post, not ever. I will offer you with a thought before digging into the cyber vigilantism that is blooming.
I believe that if we (the world) ever want to really solve the problems around Internet security, it has to be an effort commissioned by the world.
I don´t believe that UN or one nations law enforcement should solve these problems of a global Internet – it is a global concern which effects all communication between all countries, and all humans, online or offline.
Richard Stiennon (Chief Research Analyst at IT-Harvest) writes in his post Patriot Hacker Hits Jihad With DDoS Attacks about a conversation between him and the hacker “The Jester” or “th3j35t3r“.
Besides the fact that this is a very interesting article, the reactions are more interesting – even surprising.
In some discussion forums the patriot-hacking done by The Jester is praised and characterised as heroism, or at least efficient counter terrorism.
Is it OK for competent Black Hat hackers to use their skills in their own crusade against the Jihadi?
I am not to say, since there is no way to appreciate any kind of illegal action, even if it is against criminals or terrorists.
That law enforcement didn’t, wouldn’t or couldn’t react to those jihad sites in question for spreading and/or recruiting terrorism, is no endorsement for hackers to take matters into their own hands.
This hacker in question tweets regularly while law enforcement is either paralyzed, can not or will not, react to these type of activities.
The worst part might be that the public will turn a blind eye to the illegal activity committed by the hacker, and will praise him as a counter-terrorism hero.
Is this merely a bad guy meets bad guy scenario?
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John-Patrick Skaar is a seasoned IT security, infrastructure, and communication solutions sales and business development professional ith over 15 years experience within the IT sector. John-Patrick has been working for Internet Startups, large pan-Nordic System Integrators, international software vendors, and retail business as an advisor, consultant, sales director, marketing director and managing director. “This is a personal blog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer.”
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Filed under: Anthony M. Freed, Breach, Cloud computing, D&O Liability, FEATURE ARTICLE, Financial, Government, Insider Threat, Internet Security Alliance, John-Patrick Skaar, Military, PCI, Richard Stiennon, Sarbanes-Oxley, The Jester, Trefis, Uncategorized, Webcast, due diligence, hackers, healthcare, identity-theft, malware, national security, privacy, virtualization
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