Blake Dowling: Hackers, havoc and a legendary bad guy turned good

Image via Miramax.

This summer, Attorney General Ashley Moody announced a Cyber Fraud Enforcement Unit to join the fight against hackers, online criminals and digital fraudsters.

Losses from cyberattacks in Florida are hard to calculate, as many organizations refuse to talk about, or even acknowledge, they were hacked. Companies fear brand and reputational damage, but for those that are disclosed and reported to law enforcement, the estimates are close to a billion dollars annually in damage, payouts and lost productivity.

That number is just for Florida. National totals are estimated to be north of $10 billion.

The unit Moody assembled is comprised of high-powered lawyers tasked with lowering these numbers. They will assist (and be reinforcements for) those investigating and prosecuting hackers — many noteworthy criminals have already been caught.

One of those Floridians apprehended was Justin Vassel.

Vassel had a digital criminal enterprise that was (thankfully) shut down. The accused would purchase personal identification of unknown parties off the dark web (your data goes on the black market after a breach and is bought by someone like this). He would then open new credit cards in these people’s names and buy items and sell them, usually for cash at a pawnshop.

The trail of credit havoc for the victims will be long, but the crime spree is over.

A big round of applause to Moody for assembling this team to get into the front lines of the cyber war and catching criminals like Vassel. It will take more creativity and more reinforcements to finally win this fight against cybercriminals.

Speaking of reinforcements, one of the coolest reinforcements for the good guys in the fight was when former hacker Kevin Mitnick flipped from the bad guys to the good guys.

Are you familiar with the former hacker turned chief hacking officer for the tech giant, KnowBe4 in Clearwater?

Mitnick died recently; if you don’t know his background, it is one made for Hollywood.

In fact, the movie about his flip from the dark side was put out by Miramax in 2000 called Takedown.

What exactly did Mitnick do to become the plot of a Hollywood blockbuster? Let’s go back to the ’70s and learn more about the “world’s most wanted hacker.”

At age 16, the notorious hacking career of Mitnick went on the national stage when he was caught hacking into the Digital Equipment Corporation in 1979. Mitnick was charged and sentenced to 12 months in prison and then three years on parole.

While on parole, he was again charged with hacking, this time, into the Pacific Bell network.

Instead of facing punishment, Mitnick went on the lam, fleeing the law until 1995.

During his time as a fugitive, Mitnick made his living as a professional hacker, becoming a legend in the hacking community.

After being caught in North Carolina by the FBI, Mitnick was charged with unauthorized access to a federal computer, wire fraud, and interception of wire or electronic communications. In short, he was charged with  a supersized docket of hacking.

Mitnick eventually was released from prison in 2000 and pivoted to being one of the good guys. He became a public speaker, preaching how to stop hackers.

Mitnick also was a writer and eventually became part owner of KnowBbe4. Kb4 offers training in his name, the Kevin Mitnick Security Awareness Training.

We put most of our clients through it as part of our partnership with their company.

Mitnick paid his debt to society by serving time and he became one of the good guys in the global war against hacking by teaching us how to stop hackers. There is no better teacher than one who was considered the ultimate hacking expert.

Rest in peace, Mr. Mitnick, and a round of applause to Moody as well.

Hacking will not be stopped by one of us, it can only be stopped by all of us working together and bringing creativity and reinforcements to the fight when needed.

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Blake Dowling is the CEO of Aegis Business Technologies. He can be reached at [email protected].