The hacker impact is utterly disrupting, and turning businesses, industries, governments, and criminal organizations upside down. Most of the impact is bad, really bad. But let’s be realistic, it’s creating a vast system of wealth for many legitimate and non-legitimate organizations. Would FireEye or Splunk be worth $10B if hackers ceased to exist? Would the security industry in general be where it’s at today if hackers disappeared from the face of the earth?
Southern Cal is no longer the Undisputed Bank Robbery Capital of the World
Let’s take a quick look at the hacker impact on Southern California. In 1992 on a single day, 28 LA banks were robbed. At another time, 5 LA Bank of America’s were robbed in one hour. In one year in the 1990’s, more than 2,641 banks were robbed. In 2013, only 212 bank robberies occurred in the region. That’s a 90%+ drop. Bank robbery is old school now.
Why go through all that trouble, like a buying gun, buying a clown mask, renting a car, and planning the getaway, when you can just do it in style in the comfort of your own home. Go to a website, enter your zip code, and buy a dozen credit cards in the black market for a few bucks per pop. Once you’re done, then you go on a shopping spree.
The upside, you make a few thousand dollars, as opposed to holding up a bank for $1500. If you get caught, you do less time than armed robbery. Are the hackers responsible for the drop in LA bank robberies? I don’t have a clue, I’m just making a correlation. One thing I do know, a good best practice for implementing a robust Defense-in-Depth strategy is to put oneself into the criminal mindset, then devise strategies to foil the plans of the criminal element. Maybe. 🙂