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The Dan Cave

THE DAN CAVE: The Real-Life Hacking Attack Behind Michael Mann’s BLACKHAT

Welcome to The Dan Cave! Have you been doing a juice cleanse? Good — because they don’t work and you already looked great.

The Sony Hack. The Target data breach. The Fappening. Lately it seems that everywhere we look, the headlines are filled with stories of people having their personal data stolen, manipulated, and illegally distributed as a result of cybercriminals. As the world becomes increasingly connected, we leave ourselves open to new, insidious kinds of attacks like we’ve never experienced before. While many of these attacks devastate our digital lives, they rarely manifest themselves in the real world. That all changed with Stuxnet.

Back in June 2010, a computer worm called Stuxnet was discovered by cybersecurity experts. By exploiting zero-day flaws in Microsoft Windows, the malware was able to devastate Iran’s nuclear program, effectively making it the world’s first cyberweapon to wreak real life havoc. After hearing about the digital devastation in 2011, director Michael Mann began obsessively researching the attack and the world of hacking. Four years later, he is returning to the big screen with Blackhat, a thriller set in the high stakes world of international cybercrime that is heavily influenced by the Stuxnet attack. On today’s episode of The Dan Cave, I’ll take you inside the hidden history of one of the most cunning and calamitous cyberattacks ever perpetuated.

What steps do you take to protect yourself online? What would your sweet hacking handle be? Will you be seeing Blackhat? Let me know in the comments below or tell me on Twitter (@Osteoferocious) using the hashtag #TheDanCave.

Want even more The Dan Cave? Check out last week’s episode for your guide to the best anime coming out in winter 2015.

Dress for success with your very own The Dan Cave t-shirt! All the cool kids are doing it, and even some of the lame kids are catching on too!

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Comments

  1. Daimon says:

    my hacker handle would be anything but DOOM

  2. James Seg says:

    THIS Is A BOOK BY The REAL Guy behind the movie http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S89R70G

  3. Nina says:

    And now Dan Cave owns my identity. Pretty much ok with that.

  4. Anthony says:

    What do I do to protect the systems and data that I administer? The standard answer is “I could tell you, but then I would have to shoot you”.  No, really. It says so the top se5@#&3 $^#22(%^