Blackhat Movie Review

Blackhat movie review (with SPOILERS): It's been awhile since i did a movie review here and since this movie, with its title, about hacking, i think it's wise for me to write a thing or two (well probably more) about what i feel about it.

Blackhat movie poster

First off, just for general movie knowledge, when this movie was initially scripted there were a lot of protests within the industry about the synopsis that the American government is working with the Chinese government to tackle a foreign hacker while in fact, there's a huge friction between the two in the cyber war arena in the real world. (the latter was briefly mentioned in the movie)

The start of the movie was quite cool, we see a hacker clicking the Enter button and showed the movement of the data in a matrix-ial format from the computer right to the destination, a power plant. I enjoyed the first 10 mins of the movie as it showed the HMI (Human Machine Interface) of the SCADA systems and how it was hijacked. Those who know how Stuxnet works can relate to the movie since the RAT (remote access trojan) or 'virus' in this movie was probably inspired by the Stuxnet worm (where it was able to destroy many nuclear centrifuges causing it to be replaced and renewed costing millions of dollars) What a huge coincidence that i talked about this SCADA and Power Plants security talks last year.

Power Plant Meltdown from the Blackhat movie

HMI interface for a SCADA system

However, the way the things was handled by the US government and the Chinese government (cooperating with each other) was unrealistic. From the book, 'WORMS' by Mark Bowden, back when the famous Conficker virus was going on a rampage in the US, affecting millions of computers, the US government did not even bother to take further action especially when being educated that the Conficker has the ability to start a Cyber Pearl Harbor back in the days so to see that the US government providing assistance to the Chinese government was quite far fetched (but hey, who knows this movie could entice a possible cooperation between them). 

WORM by Mark Bowden

Everything went well until when they decided to kill the direction of the movie. Im not going to comment on this as i was utterly disappointed.. its like watching the latest Transformers scene in China...pointless! Chris Hemsworth, the hacker in the movie was somehow good at martial arts and even know how to use a gun better than the villains. (Seriously??? Now i missed Hugh Jackman in Swordfish). 

Swordfish the movie

My verdict: It was all positive hype in the first 30 mins until it went totally downhill the rest. Don't expect a Blackhat vs Blackhat cyber battle or a Die Hard 4.0 kind of vibe. The villains were lame and making the 90s movie Hackers way better than this.

When it comes to Security - Nothing is Impossible

In 1995, the movie ‘Hackers’ premiered, and the feedback was unanimous: “Exaggerated! How on earth was that even possible?!”

Almost ten years on, and these ‘exaggerated’ ideas have become a reality. The film features a virus called ‘Da Vinci’ — a remote-controlled virus set to sink a fleet of oil tankers from afar. Exaggerated, right? Well, at this year’s Hack in the Box security conference, we learnt that the possibility of a virus hijacking an airline was not that far off.



An earlier film, ‘War Games’, sees Matthew Broderick playing a small-time hacker whose initial objective was simply to play games, but ends up hacking into the US Government’s mainframe. When challenged by his peers about the complexity of a system he has gained access to, he replies, “Hey, I don’t think any system is totally secure.”

This quote from a 1983 movie is still worryingly relevant in today’s society. Millions are spent on devising complex and diverse security architectures, but with every security advance, there are more determined and more specialised hackers attempting to break into the systems.

In today’s society, it takes a lot more than computer competence to become a hacker. Kevin Mitnick, one of the world’s best-known hackers and, at one time, America’s most wanted computer criminal, used simple social skills to overcome and bypass some of the most highly-secured facilities. Mitnick helped coin the term ‘social engineering’; using deception and emotional manipulation to gain access to otherwise impenetrable systems. As Bruce Schneier once said, “Amateurs hack systems. Professionals hack people.”

Electronic communications via email, chat applications, SMS, phone calls, or VoIP can all be broken down into zeros and ones. These days, communication means data, and data can mean information, which then leads to value. Controlling information means controlling the situation. Between 2007 and 2008, Chinese hackers were able to hack and control two US satellites for a total of 11 minutes, intercepting information transmitted between the satellite and NASA. Whoever gained access to the data chose not to do anything with it, but it became a landmark in highlighting issues of cyber security.

The new generation of hackers no longer just hack to disrupt services and infrastructure. They hack to take control of information and data. In the modern age of technology, the value of your data inside your flash drive could be one of the most valuable things in your arsenal.

The things that we have now, the systems we are using, the mobile phones we carry are the result of hacks that were done during the computer revolution back in the 70s. The technologies that you and I have at hand are partially the result of those people who broke the law to modify, create and innovate.

The gift of hindsight has allowed us to see the technological pathways that computer hacking has forged. Where once, hacking possibilities were at the hands of film directors and novelists, they now lie in the hands of anyone with imagination.

As industry leaders in communication, it is our job to have an awareness of the potential risks and pitfalls that hacking can create. By keeping an open mind to hackers and technological creativity, we can ensure that we are able to defend and foresee any threat in the digital world. As Einstein once said, “Imagination is sometimes better than knowledge.”


This article was also posted at http://tinyurl.com/m38xj2e

The Hacker Manifesto

The Hacker Manifesto

by
+++The Mentor+++
Written January 8, 1986

Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal", "Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering"...

Damn kids. They're all alike.

But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950's technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him?

I am a hacker, enter my world...

Mine is a world that begins with school... I'm smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me...

Damn underachiever. They're all alike.

I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..."

Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike.

I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me... Or feels threatened by me.. Or thinks I'm a smart ass.. Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here...

Damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike.

And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found. "This is it... this is where I belong..." I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again... I know you all...

Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike...

You bet your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.

This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.

Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.

I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike.

Hacking Movie - Sneakers

Quotes from the movie Sneakers. Its amazing how real it means now..

"There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information!"

"The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It's run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data. It's all just electrons."

-- Cosmo from, "Sneakers" (1992)

Hacking Movie - Operation Takedown

Best Quote in the movie Operation Takedown that summarized the story of the infamous hacker and social engineer Kevin Mitnick

Hacker: You did not get this from me.I do not want Kevin Mitnick coming after me.

Tsutomu Shimomura: We respect your privacy

Hacker: Privacy? Never heard of it!

Hacking Movie - Wargames

A movie every security enthusiasts should watch!

Started in the 80s, this movie is one of the many hacking inspired movies that inspired me to be in the cyber security world.

One of my favorite quotes from the movie is when David Lightman said "Hey, i dont believe that any system is totally secure."

Though this was in the 80s, it is scary to note that even now, that belief still applies to modern computer systems.