Have you ever thought to yourself – that hack – Cyber Event – happened 6 weeks ago why do we not yet know what happened?
The problem with today’s cyber events is actually how complicated and complex that hack or breach was to achieve.
Like every criminal they like to cover their tracks and there are a huge variety of ways to do that in the digital world.
How many out there have fudged on our profiles – old photos (missing the gray hair), wrong birthdays, wrong year of birth.
So the first problem – who just hacked my system?
Everything can be fake.
If you, an honest law abiding citizen, can lie on your profile why then can’t the bad guys.
We only lie about our profile out of vanity, they do it because they are legitimately trying to hide.
This is the first hurdle when it comes to identification.
Little or no information.
In addition they use what we call handles – think old radio speak “over and out rubber ducky”.
Today’s handles are a little more complex, or they convey some level of anonymity.
The calling card of a cyber event
The second problem – what system did they use to hack my system?
The internet is full of systems, information and attack weapons that are easy to use, have large quantities of how to’s, help and videos.
That is just the internet.
If you want to know more get onto a chat room on the dark web and see what happens.
In addition to this there are also a vast range of ‘Proxies’.
These are devices and systems that have either been hacked and the owner has not discovered it or have been put together in other countries and locations specifically used as a way to hide the next attack.
The third problem – what has actually been stolen?
Everything today is data.
If I steal money from your credit card or bank account it is noticeable in the real world. I can see that someone has removed money from my possession, in some way. Stealing money from you then comes down to making you trust the transaction.
If I can steal $20 from you with an illegal pay wave transaction will you notice it?
But data is different. When i steal data from you, the information stays in the same place.
I am stealing a COPY of that information.
What I now do with that information will not have an impact on the original copy of the information.
If I have removed that data, how do you know that I have done that?
Each one of these steps can take hours, weeks, months or years to unravel. In that time the general public, industry, regulators, government and press are screaming and carrying on. To find out what happened.