As with any cyber phenomenon, hacking is a relatively recent phenomenon invented slightly over 5 decades ago. The period since then and up to this point saw new ways of hacking into different systems developed, deterrent acts enforced, and abusers arrested. The present state of the illicit occupation shows the great heights hacking, unfortunately, has achieved, as seen in it being applied for enjoying free phone calls or transferring bank funds. The occupation looks very developed, worse still, it is predicted to develop in the time to come. The human factor, unprotected systems, and technology development will keep feeding the trade of hacking. The point is that hacking has existed for close to 6 decades reaching great heights over its history, with no stop to the trend on the horizon.
The Past of Hacking
TBG Security (n.d.) noted that hacking dated back as far as the 1960s started at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when the early hacks came in the shape of shortcuts designed to improve and bypass system operation. In 1971, John Draper invented the so-called blue box intended for making free long-distance calls. Next year, Steve Jobs alongside Steve Wozniak mastered the art of phreaking allowing them to hack into telecommunication systems to enjoy free calls. The year 1981 witnessed the formation of the biggest association of hackers called the Chaos Computer Club. The publication of the Hacker Quarterly took place in 1984. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act finally arrived in the USA in 1986. In 1988, Kevin Poulsen made bold to hack a federal computer network only for him to have police declare him wanted forcing the offender into going into hiding.
In the same year, Robert Morris created the Morris Worm considered the first-ever internet computer worm. The following year, Morris was the first to have ever received sentence under the mentioned act, yet police had not arrested, even less sentenced him to the 5-year spell until 1991. The year 1995 was notable for the detention of ill-famed hackers, such as Vladimir Levin and Kevin Mitnick. In 1997, a hacking program called AOHELL threw the AOL network into disarray sending chat rooms and inboxes shattered. In 2000, hackers released the ILOVEYOU worm infecting email accounts resulting in a 10 billion dollars’ worth of damage. Back then, Michael Calce triggered a succession of disturbed denial of service attacks causing the collapse of Dell.com, Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo within a week (TBG Security, n.d.). As will be evident from the present state of hacking, the trade has evolved a great deal to this point.
The Present State
When it comes to the epicenters of top hackers’ location, Bhattacharjee (2011) stated that hackers from Ukraine and Russia were considered skillful innovators. Overall, the countries of the now collapsed USSR and the East European region are said to host cybercrime hotspots associated with organized crime groups. A small town of Râmnicu Vâlcea in Romania is one such hotbeds of cyber offense (as cited in Broadhurst, Grabosky, Alazab, and Chon, 2014). China Daily (2010) and Pauli (2012) reported Chinese hackers to have run active and dangerous these days (as cited in Broadhurst, et al., 2014). As far as the activities of such hackers are concerned, Saini, Rao, and Panda (2012) noted that a group of hackers might break into the website of the government for crashing it, which they do by flooding it with a huge volume of traffic. Cyber criminals have come to develop the now-utilized ability of hacking into a telephone service using computers to gain the benefit of free phone calls (Magutu, Ondimu, and Ipu, 2011). However, the hackers of today are not always out to prove themselves skillful and enjoy minor benefits at other people’s expense. Their proving ground may involve plenty of damaging.
Yung, Wang, and Huang (2011) suggested that experts often associated modern hacking with the misappropriation of properties, such as billing and copyrighted artifacts, and valuable non-personal information, such as confidential documents and business secrets in cyberspace. Having said that, contemporary hacking can serve as a tool of receiving identifying personal information that may be a byproduct of the hacking effort intended for a different purpose. Hacking looks attractive to cyber criminals today, as there is no need for physical presence on the crime scene. All they need is to exploit online billing and financial systems in order to gain access to privileged information. Now that a variety of establishments have come employing the database technology for the management and storage of data, a copy of such database is precious asset in the black market of information.
According to Dzomira (2015), hackers may seek to expose in plain view the considerable quantities of confidential data in a desire to inflict not only fiscal, but also reputational damages to a specific establishment. Furthermore, the cyber world of finances is too enticing a prospect for hacker to overlook. Modern hackers are often there to lay hands on big money. Karim (2016) reported about hackers who retrieved the transfer codes on the central bank of Bangladesh and sent the requests of payment transfer estimated at 1 billion dollars to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Their request was that there be funds transferred to a Philippines bank. Once received, the cash was routed to three casinos in the Philippines. They did so for their eventual conversion into chips for betting later turned into cash again.
Future Trends
With an eye to convenience and efficiency, companies move resources, transactions, and money to the virtual space for their subsequent management there. This being so, the likelihood of hacking remaining an alluring instrument of identity theft in the coming years remains high (Yung, Wang, and Huang, 2011). Hackers are likely to keep targeting companies as before to come into possession of information and other resources stored by companies that have gone digital. There is no forgetting that the human factor has always been a strong one. Saini, Rao, and Panda (2012) regarded people as the weakest link irrespective of how the technology changes. Thus, attackers know full well that they can always hack employees. The researchers predicted that human attacks would increase in number and sophistication in the article post-publication period.
McAfee Labs (2016) noted that connected home networks could become the easiest approach for offenders to hack their way into the resources of employers or the lives of average people over the following half a decade. Attacker will stand a good chance of hacking people using home systems devoid of the corporate level protection. Organization spending their budget ineffectively by purchasing top technologies, without maintaining the sufficient staff for running it, will easy prey for hackers. Overall, much as one would like to say otherwise, the hacking trade seems to have future. McAfee Labs (2016) admitted that the deficit of competent security talent to repulse attacks, the shortage of integrated security technologies, the increased sophistication of attacks, and the ongoing expansion of the cyber assault surface would be the forces responsible for issues faced by cyber security.
Conclusions
Thus, hacking has evolved greatly from humble beginnings in the 1960s. Its present state clearly shows the heights it has achieved. Whether to use phone services, without paying, or transfer funds, cyber criminals apply the hacking skills to their advantage. Worse, the trade is likely to evolve with time. People seem to be the major weak link of the defenses that hacker will seek to manipulate in their offensive efforts. In the future, spending will not yield significant results for companies unless coupled with competent personnel getting the technologies and programs working properly.
References
Broadhurst, R., Grabosky, P., Alazab, M., and Chon, S. (2014). Organizations and cybercrime: An analysis of the nature of groups engaged in cybercrime. International Journal of Cyber Criminology, 8(1), 1-20. Retrieved from: http://www.cybercrimejournal.com/broadhurstetalijcc2014vol8issue1.pdf
Dzomira, S. (2015). Cyber-banking fraud risk mitigation – conceptual model. Banks and Bank Systems, 10(2), 7-14. Retrieved from: http://businessperspectives.org/journals_free/bbs/2015/BBS_en_2015_02_Dzomira.pdf
Karim, S.S. (2016). Cyber-crime scenario in banking sector of Bangladesh: An overview. The Cost and Management, 44(2), 12-19. Retrieved from: http://www.icmab.org.bd/images/stories/journal/2016/Mar-Apr/3.Cyber-crime.pdf
Magutu, P.O., Ondimu, G.M., and Ipu, C.J. (2011). Effects of cybercrime on state security: Types, impact, and mitigations with the fiber optic deployment in Kenya. Journal of Information Assurance & Cybersecurity. DOI: 10.5171/2011.618585
McAfee Labs. (2016). McAfee labs report 2016 threats predictions. Retrieved from: http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/reports/rp-threats-predictions-2016.pdf
TBG Security. (n.d.). The history of hacking – timeline of hacking techniques [infographic]. Retrieved from: https://tbgsecurity.com/the-history-of-hacking-timeline-of-hacking-techniques-infographic/
Saini, H., Rao, Y.S., and Panda, T.C. (2012). Cyber-crimes and their impacts: A review. International Journal of Engineering Research and Applications, 2(2), 202-209. Retrieved from: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.417.1369&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Yung, S., Wang, K., and Huang, W. (2011). The evolution view of the types of identity thefts and online frauds in the era of the internet. Internet Journal of Criminology. Retrieved from: http://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/wang_huang_the_evolutional_view_of_the_types_of_identity_thefts_and_online_frauds_in_the_era_of_internet_ijc_oct_2011.pdf
