Are hackers taking over?

Over the past 12 months the number of companies that have been hacked worldwide has gone dramatically up. One of the stand-out points is the companies who have been hacked, as most of the companies are known and renowned worldwide. The list of hacked companies includes Nintendo, Qriocity and the PlayStation Network, WordPress.com and Epsilon.

But with security measures and computer security being increased and updated year by year, surely the number of companies hacked would decrease. But unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be that case.

So why is it that more and more companies are falling to hackers? One of the reasons could be that hackers find it so easy and take the same pleasure out of hacking as a 100m sprinter would by winning a gold medal. 

A couple of hackers who would fit this description would be the lone figure of 16 year old Jonathan James and the group known as LulzSec.

Between them they have hacked into the Department of Defence, the CIA, the Pentagon, United States Senate website, the websites for the Bank of Portugal, and NASA. They have installed backdoor systems and have gained access to employee’s emails, usernames and passwords. Also between them they have managed to steal $1.7 million worth of software from NASA. 

But the difference between them is that LulzSec are trying to pioneer hacking as a spectator sport and are regularly taking requests as to who the group should target next. But on the other hand Jonathan isn’t, when he was brought to court and questioned about his actions. He simply claimed that he was just looking around, playing around, and said that “What was fun for me was a challenge to see what I could pull off.”

But what do you think?

Can anything be done to stop hackers?

Please leave a comment below.