Who is the enemy..
- The curious
-
The curious are those who have set up their first machine on the network
and want to look around at what is out there. These people will telnet
to a couple of your ports and try to log in as guest.
- Threat Level: Not much of a real threat unless you are very sloppy.
- The showoff
- These are the people who have invested a some time browsing the web
for "elite" exploits. These people will typically have a bag of tricks
that they can run through in an attempt to break into your machine.
Also well known for showing off to friends as the rm -rf your machine.
- Threat Level:Not often a threat against a moderately secured machine, but will be a large source of attacks against machines. (These are the teeming masses)
- The hacker
- The guys who have invested night after night after night after night
learning about security relevant topics. The usually have a large collection
of exploits. large of number of contacts to get exploits (0 or -1 day warez)
before you even have a hope of seeing them. They have also aquired the
ability to generate new exploits "on the fly".
- Threat Level:High level of threat. There is probably a 50/50
split amoungst this group as to whether they will even be breaking into
machines anymore. The best of this group tend not to, the lower rung tend
to still go after boxes. However, most often this will not be a machine
located in a dorm. The big trend now is large corporation and government
web sites... (Who knows...)
- Past hacker trends: or ways that make hackers think they are cool.
- Sysop on a BBS
- Owning a unix box on the internet and giving out accounts
- irc
- Having a web site
- Moving in with eachother (hacker comunes)
- Breaking into eachothers machines and making books out of it
- Running a Con
- Breaking into Web Sites
- The professional
- The guys you don't meet. And if you have, you probably don't know it.
Financial backing and lots of time to invest make for a very formidable foe.
These guys are on tiger teams, breaking into secure facilities, stealing
industrial secrets, etc etc.
- Threat Level: Very High. But don't sweat it.
- Everyone in this room
- Look around. Everyone in this room is excited to learn about security.
(Hopefully) Some will probably go home and start poking around at peoples
machines. (See curious) Apply what you have learned and watch your logs. :)
- Threat Level: Low. But you'll see some.
