Kevin Mitnick: The Security Hero

Abstract— the man who turns himself from bad man to good man is Kevin Mitnick. He becomes very important consultant in security field. He could be very rich but he is not because he decides to use his knowledge for helping organizations to secure the important information. He deserves to be a hero.

Index Terms— Social Security, Kevin Mitnick,

I. INTRODUCTION

T

he hero has a profound faith in himself as an main power of effects. The hero has his special aspects that make him different from other people. The hero believes in the value of human life [13]. These were some definitions of a hero. A one can be a hero in any fields. One of this fields is Information Security.

Information security is like a game between the hackers and security department in an organization. While the hacker tries to find any hole in the system, the security engineer tries to close all vulnerabilities. The hacker becomes a big danger for an unsecured or protracted information system.

A Hacker can be arrested by police because he/she steals unauthorized information for a purpose or just for play like Kevin Mitnick. This small article talks about Mitnick as one of the most famous hacker in the world. We will see who is he, what he did and why does he become a hero.

There are five main characteristic of heroism. First, a hero should be irritated by a deep respect for human life. Second, he has very strong sense of what he wants and what his usefulness. Third, his vision is very wide and can see what other people cannot see. And fourth, he has great mental and physical courage. We will see how our hero meets these characters. [13]

II. WHO IS KEVIN MITNICK?

Kevin Mitnick is one of the most famous black hat hacker in the world. He was born on 6 August 1963 [1] in Los Angeles [2]. He grew there with divorced parents in 1970's.

Mitnick did not have a good live in the school. He was in middle class environments which cause him to start searching for entertainment and developing many hobbies which including amateur radio. Later, Kevin joined phone phreaking community where he learned the basics of social engineering (Social engineering is the art of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information) [14].

Now, social engineering becomes the trademark for Kevin where he teaches it in many security lectures.

III. WHAT DID KEVIN MITNICK DO?

Kevin has long history with computers. By 1980, he was able to get a good place as annoying kid in the on computer bulletin board systems using "The Condor" [3]. He learned how to get in and out from various computer systems and how to get the critical information like passwords by using social engineering.

In 1983, he can access into a computer in the Pentagon and accessing ARPNET at USC terminal room [4]. In 1988, Kevin agreed to go to the prison for one year. He said that he has an addiction for breaking computers. After this he was being getting national attention.

After one year, he got released and then he took a job el Tec Detective Agency. After that with no longer time, it was noticed that someone was used a commercial database access using unauthorized access. FBI got involved on that and a warrant has been issued to arrest Kevin after two months but he was disappears for two years [6].

On December 1994, Kevin made a big mistake. He attacked Tsutomu Shimomura's computers in California. After two month, Shimomura tracked him down after long electronic tracking [3].

On 15 February 1995, Kevin was arrested by the FBI [1]. He was convicted of attacking computer systems of Fujitsu, Motorola, Nokia, and Sun Microsystems. He spent five years in prison and he was released on 21 January 2003 with restricted using of any communication technology other than a landline telephone. But the judge allowed him to access the internet after fighting this decision in the court.

After his first log on to the Internet, Kevin did exactly what every one does likes surfed, fighting with browser plug ins and attacking by pop-ups. The first site that Kevin visited was his girlfriend site, labmistress.com [5].

Thus, we can see what makes Kevin from his story. Kevin has a profound respect for human life because he wants to prevent black hackers from effect badly the information security. In addition, Kevin has very strong sense in his choice which is to be professional security consultant. He can see the big damage that black hackers can make for human life.

IV. WHY DOES