Just for the Lulz

Do you see what's going on here? How secure is your password? Hacking has alway been thought of as an activity for dweebs grumping in a basement cavern, peering at numerous monitors by the glow blue and green computer lights through thick nerd glasses. The group has always been frowned upon, of course, but perhaps not taken entirely seriously. And why would they, when popular culture portrays a hacker in various lights: just look at various serials like Criminal Minds, NCIS and going back further, movies like the aptly named Hackers. The conspiracy theorist in me also likes to point out that large corporations have a certain profit in making hackers out to be such a bad thing, as does the government. They can benefit from a general negative perception, and indeed, they have succeeded in doing so. But there are glimmers of light and interesting factoids. Some hackers are reformed and come work for the good guys, beefing up security for your governments and companies, keeping your data, nay, your life safe from evil-doers.

It's all part of the act, you see. So what we have happening over the last couple of weeks is incredibly interesting. Various groups of hackers, hacking for various reasons. Some claim to do it for noble reasons, others, not so much. Some are making demands, like certain politicians to step down, or reverse decisions. And other groups, well, they'd doing it for the lulz. But who's laughing? Lulz Security is focusing on the companies of gamers, but aren't afraid to get into other areas. These groups are definitely knocking up a notch by bringing down and releasing government sites and records. With all the hacking going on, I feel like the entire USA is going bonkers. And perhaps it's because I keep on top of tech news (for the most part) that I hear so much about this. Does your average citizen know what's going on?

Let's back it up a bit here and really focus though on the big one, specifically, Sony. A few months ago these hackers breezed past Sony security and obtained the records of 77 million user accounts. Seventy seven million. Think about it for a second and let it sink in. You hear about other comprises where a few thousand accounts are affected. You think that's OK, you're not one of them. But if you have a Sony account, then your account is most definitely out there now. What does that mean to you? Perhaps you don't care about your Sony PlayStation Network account, but you should be concerned about what's in there. Your username. Your password. Do you use the same password on other services? Then you had better go change that password everywhere. Perhaps these groups are doing us a service as they bring into light how weak security is, and what you should be doing to protect yourself. Unique passwords for every site you belong to is a good start, but impossible to maintain a large number of without just writing them all down on a sheet of paper. That's where password managers come in, and I highly recommend you use one.

So where does it end? I'm not sure that it does. It will continue to happen as people discovery the possibilities of the anonymous blanket. The news that a trio of their fellow hackers were apprehended makes no difference; we could be talking about a group of a half dozen to hundreds or more. But it brings into light things that should matter to you as we move further into a digital age. What information do you have out there? How secure are the places you decide to store things? What steps should you take when your data has been compromised?

One thing is for sure though, is that they are pointing out how weak security can be at various companies. Sony was down for months as they tried to recover (and were being constantly attacked). In the end we all got a few free games out of it and can move on. I'm sure some of barely noticed at all.