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Transcription of interview with Kevin Mitnick on July 23, 2012.
Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, Financial Planner & Investment Advisor
Kevin Mitnick is one of the most famous hackers in the world.
He wrote a book called Ghost in the Wires, which is a New York Times bestseller.
Douglas Goldstein, financial planner & investment advisor, interviewed Mitnick on Arutz Sheva
Radio.
Douglas Goldstein: In your days as a renegade hacker, what was your favorite hack?
Kevin Mitnick: You’re going to be a little bit surprised, as it was actually my hack-in
at McDonalds.
It wasn’t about getting a Big Mac.
What I worked out was how I could take over their drive up window, so when the customers
would drive up to make an order, they would get me rather than the guy inside.
When people would drive up, I would take their order and then I would say, “You’re the
100th customer today.
Please drive forward - your order’s for free!”
But my favorite is when the cops would drive up and I would say, “I’m sorry sir, we
don’t serve burgers anymore to you guys.
We only serve doughnuts,” or I would say, “Hide the cocaine!
Hide the cocaine!
Sorry, may I take your order please?”
They got so crazy that the manager of the McDonalds went out to the parking lot.
He’s looking around and trying to figure out what’s going on, but he can’t see
anything.
He walks up to the speaker of the drive up window and he actually peers inside as if
there’s something hiding inside.
So I keyed on the mike and I go, “What the hell are you looking at?” and the guy flies
back 20 feet!
That was one of my favorites.
Douglas Goldstein: Where were you standing when you ran this hack?
Kevin Mitnick: I was across the street because I modified my ham radio to go on to their
frequency.
I was actually a good quarter mile away.
Douglas Goldstein: You did this last month?
Kevin Mitnick: No, a little bit younger, like when I was 16, 17 or 18 years old.
We’re talking about 35 years ago.
Douglas Goldstein: It seems that some of the more exciting hacks that you did got people
a little bit ticked off and you ended up spending a little bit of time as a guest of the government.
How did that go for you?
Kevin Mitnick: I actually spent a year in solitary confinement.
What had happened was that when I was arrested for hacking, I went to my first appearance
in court and I was expecting to get bailed.
But the prosecutor started telling the judge, “We have to make sure Mr. Mitnick is held
without bail,” - and don’t forget this is a hacking case.
“We have to make sure he can’t get access to a telephone because if Mr. Mitnick has
access to a prison payphone, he could dial into NORAD and he could whistle the launch
codes and possibly cause a nuclear strike.”
I started laughing in open court because I never heard something so preposterous in my
life.
To my amazement, the judge bought this hook, line and sinker and I sat in solitary confinement
for almost a year, because of this rumor that I could whistle the launch codes.
This was in about 1988.
Douglas Goldstein: Could you in fact whistle launch codes?
Kevin Mitnick: I’ve been practicing and I was going to actually try to whistle.
I should’ve prepared, but I won’t be able to do it right now.
I’ve got to tell you I’ve definitely been practicing.
Actually, I have a little video of a guy whistling the theme to “Mission Impossible,” and
all of the sudden you hear the air strike sirens going off and explosions, but I didn’t
have time to have the audio recording ready for you.
Douglas Goldstein: I understand that some of the trouble you had came up when the FBI
was tracking some of your actions.
Is it true that you actually left them a gift?
Kevin Mitnick: What had happened is the FBI sent this informant to entrap me and I figured
it out after a few weeks.
I wanted to figure out who the informant was communicating with, so I hacked into a cell
phone provider in Los Angeles.
It was actually PacTel Cellular, and this was back when you had analogue cell phones.
I hacked into their network and it gave me access to the call detail records.
What I could actually do is any calls that PacTel Cellular customers made I could see,
and when anyone called a PacTel Cellular number, I could see who called.
I had the informant’s pager number, his voicemail number, and his home number, so
I basically searched PacTel Cellular for anyone that called him and I came up with a list
of numbers, and then I looked at their billing records and my jaw almost dropped when one
number kept showing up.
It was 310-477-6565 and that was the number for the headquarters of the FBI in Los Angeles.
So right there, I knew something was very wrong.
I worked as a PI at that time, and I set up a device in my office so if any of these cell
phones came within a couple of miles, I would be given an early warning alert and how that
worked is when you’re on the cell phone and you move into an area, the cell phone
has to register with the cell site.
I was able to monitor the cell site traffic to look for these numbers that were appearing
in the area.
Maybe a month later, I walked into the office, I heard this weird beeping that’s coming
from my office, and I looked at my computer and my early warning system was tripped.
It turned out that agents were at my house two hours earlier, but at that time, I was
sleeping at my house.
I started thinking, why would they be there?
They didn’t knock on the door.
They’re right there.
They’re calling a payphone across the street from my apartment, so then I figured maybe
they’re getting an affidavit to get a search warrant because they actually have to go physically
out there and make a description for the court of the place to search.
The next day nothing happened, and then I thought that these guys might show up any
day, so I took everything of interest that the government might have out my apartment
and I went to Winchell’s Donuts and bought a big assorted dozen doughnuts, and I wrote
with the sharpie, “FBI doughnuts.”
I put it in the refrigerator and on a big post-it on my refrigerator, I wrote, “FBI
doughnuts inside,” like “Intel inside,” and that morning at 6 am they raided me.
They didn’t find any computer equipment.
They did find the doughnuts, but they didn’t eat any.
They were pretty upset.
Douglas Goldstein: Now that you’ve turned to helping the government and companies, do
you get the feeling that they’re still watching you?
Kevin Mitnick: Possibly, but my story is like Catch Me If You Can.
The same government agencies and the same companies that were trying to put me in prison
years ago, now hire me to help them with their security.
For example, the FBI’s InfraGuard division had me speak at an event in Texas.
I get hired by major companies to do security work, so I’m glad that these companies were
able to look past by unethical hacking years and now realize that I’m here to help, and
I use my skills to help businesses, governments and universities protect themselves, so I’m
really appreciative that I have this opportunity, and I’ve been doing it for the last nine
years.
Douglas Goldstein: Please explain what normal people could and should be doing.
Is it something to worry about if a regular guy keeps track of his stocks and bonds in
his house or in his home office?
What should normal people do to protect themselves, or should they really be worried about this?
Kevin Mitnick: They should be concerned.
If you go to an airport, or you go to a coffee shop and you’re using open wireless, I would
use a service that you could probably subscribe for maybe 10 bucks a month.
It’s called VPN, which stands for “virtual private networking.”
You can sign up for one of these accounts, and as soon as you connect to the wireless
network, you connect to the VPN service so that way everything is encrypted in an encrypted
tunnel, so a hacker cannot tamper with your connection.
One of the big threats today on the internet is social engineering.
Somebody sends you an office document, a PDF file, and as soon as you open it, it’s a
booby trap and the hacker has complete control of your computer.
I would use Google docs.
Somebody sends me a document in email, I don’t open it in my computer, I open it in Google
docs.
I use quick view for the PDFs.
Another major problem is password management.
People use the same password on multiple sites, so when the hacker compromises one site, they
have your password for everywhere else, so you can download a free password manager.
There’s KeePass, Epass, Password Gorilla, and Password Safe.
These are great tools because you basically put in all your passwords on your computer.
It’s all encrypted and you have to memorize one single password, the master password,
and as soon as you go to your website to log in, it will automatically paste your password
in there and makes the passwords random, they’re all different and your security is significantly
exponentially improved for a free product and very little work.
These are all free.
You don’t have to pay for them and you can Google for password managers but I would recommend
KeePass.
It works on Windows and Mac.
It’s absolutely free.
Douglas Goldstein: A lot of the guys who are young and real hot shots and trying to be
great hackers, do you feel that you can still compete with them?
Are you still hacking today?
Kevin Mitnick: I’m hacking.
I was hacking last night, and I actually was able to break into the company.
It actually was a little bit difficult.
It actually took about a week, but in this case I did it with permission unlike what
I used to do many years ago.
I’m still a hacker today, but I do it with authorization, so companies hire me to test
their security.
Using the same methodologies that I used to use in my younger years, whether it’s exploiting
physical security vulnerabilities, technical vulnerabilities, vulnerabilities with your
people, what we called “human factor vulnerabilities,” is companies want to know how vulnerable they
are so they hire companies like mine to test their security and in that way, they know
what they need to fix before the real bad guys get in.
Douglas Goldstein: How can people find out more what about what you’re doing and keep
track of it?
Kevin Mitnick: My website is www.mitnicksecurity.com.
For my book, which is called Ghost in the Wires, and is a New York Times Bestseller
now, my autobiography, you can go to www.ghostinthewires.com.
Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, is the director of Profile Investment Services and the host
of the Goldstein on Gelt radio show (Monday nights at 7:00 PM on www.israelnationalradio.com.
He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S. and Israel.
Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA,
SIFMA.
Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
Member NYSE/SIPC, a Fidelity Investments company.
His book Building Wealth in Israel is available in bookstores, on the web, or can be ordered
at: www.profile-financial.com (02) 624-2788 or (03) 524-0942.
Disclaimer: This document is a transcription and/or an educational article.
While it is believed to be current and accurate, divergence from the original is to be expected.
The original podcast can be heard at https://sites.google.com/site/goldsteinradioshows/.
All information on this website is purely information and should not be used as the
sole basis for making financial decisions.
The opinions rendered herein are those of the guests, and not necessarily those of Douglas
Goldstein, Profile Investment Services, Ltd., or Israel National News.
Readers should consult with a professional financial advisor before making any financial
decisions.
Please see the complete disclaimer at https://sites.google.com/site/goldsteinradioshows/.