With millions of Americans’ personal information becoming compromised by recent high-profile data breaches, many people are wondering just how anonymous hackers target and infiltrate these supposedly secure systems. Here is a step-by-step explanation of how your data can be stolen:
- Step 1: Hacker undergoes 18 to 25 years of bullying, social neglect, and bruised ego to gain sufficient chip on shoulder
- Step 2: A target is selected that has personally wronged the hacker, like 700,000 customers of a major retail corporation
- Step 3: Initial access gained by locating vulnerabilities in the system and exploiting those backdoors via rootkit, a process that can only be fully explained with the utmost condescension
- Step 4: Hacker sheepishly backtracks after realizing he ran script to enumerate VMware configurations like an idiot instead of the getcountermeasure.rb to detect third-party firewall processes
- Step 5: Once database is breached, frustrated culprit attempts to sort through incredibly disorganized mess office manager has made of the files
- Step 6: Face hauntingly illuminated by glow of computer monitor smirks before saying,“Toasted”
- Step 7: The triumphant hacker celebrates a successful attack by delightedly rolling around in pile of Social Security numbers
- Step 8: China blamed
- Step 9: Hacker lies low for few months, begins six-figure job at data security firm