A former hacker called ‘Mafiaboy’ has joined the OEM to make a documentary about cyber attacks.
Financial Post reported that a former Canadian hacker has partnered with HP Inc to raise awareness about the issue of corporate data security, and business susceptibility to being hacked. The documentary (which you can view below) is called Rivolta, and is the story of a 15-year-old boy, Michael Calce, known as “Mafiaboy”, who hacked and “took down” some of the biggest e-commerce companies in the world and caused damages of around $1.7 billion ($1.2 billion/€1.2 billion).
Calce, now 32 years old and based in Montreal, runs Optimal Secure, a company that shows businesses their weak spots in security networks. Calce commented: “The biggest threat from of all of this is that when I was hacking, it was about notoriety. Today, it is about monetary gain and I think companies need to really understand that.”
IDC estimated that 40 percent of Canadian companies have experienced breaches of data security at some time or other, and of those 56 percent said that the “unlikely source” was the printer, which is a source of sensitive data. According to the former hacker ,both printers and other devices that are connected to the internet are the most common weak links in security breaches, and it’s not just SMBs but “major Fortune 250 companies” as well.
Calce said that “realistically, printers are the largest group of devices in an office setting and they have evolved so much”, and added that some companies just go with the default settings when they get a new printer: “Hackers can pull all of the jobs from the printer’s memory or they can do many other things to run exploits like use some of the ports of the printer to gain access to the entire network.”
Michael Howard, Chief Security Advisor and Worldwide Security Practice Lead at HP Inc, said: “The problem is huge. I go into major financial institutions that are still using default passwords on printers. Largely printers are sitting on (company networks) unmanaged and unmonitored, and they don’t have any way to know if anything is going on.”
Howard, who gives advice to some of the largest corporates in the world, advises them to see every device connected to the internet as a risk, and to invest in security packages and change default settings. Howard commented: “In Vancouver, there was a breach where (hackers) turned on a TV and recorded everything going on in a boardroom. Or it’s also things like vending machines being put on networks.”
Calce explained that there are other methods where hackers send links to websites, or misleading e-mails that tricks people into downloading software that aids the hacker and allows accessibility, adding that everyone should be more aware and less trusting when something does not appear to be right. He concluded: “Nothing will ever be 100 per cent secure, but you can mitigate the risk. It’s like driving a car. Do you buckle your seatbelt or not? You mitigate the risk of losing your life by doing so.”