Kevin Mitnick: Hacking and social media

Kevin Mitnick is a famous hacker of the 90s, who (in my opinion) is a hacker who just hacked for the sake of hacking. Though once apprehended, FBI officials put him in solitary confinement believing he could set off a nuclear bomb by "whistling into a pay phone."

Rather than using technical hacking skills, Mitnick used "social engineering," which is influencing people who have access to computer systems to tell you information either directly or indirectly. An indirect example is getting a user to click on an attachment in an email (or phishing).

Hackers who utilize social engineering target certain types of employees, like information gatekeepers, new hires or remote employees (http://www.cio.com/article/29825/Kevin_Mitnick_on_Social_Engineering_Hackers). Mitnick mentions that social media makes targeting these employees even easier. LinkedIn, for instance, allows you to painlessly find the new employees at a company or the people with access to the company's information systems.

Here is a clip from an interview with Mitnick on Colbert:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/395003/august-18-2011/kevin-mitnick