Kevin Mitnick is an American computer security consultant, author and hacker. He is best known for his high profile arrest in the mid 1990’s for committing wire fraud and intercepting electronic communications. Here is a look at some of the most notable Kevin Mitnick quotes ever documented.
“A hacker doesnt deliberately destroy data or profit from his activities.”
“A lot of companies are clueless, because they spend most or all of their security budget on high-tech security like fire walls and biometric authentication – which are important and needed – but then they don’t train their people.”
“As a young boy, I was taught in high school that hacking was cool.”
“At the end of the day, my goal was to be the best hacker.”
“For the average home-user, anti-virus software is a must.”
“Hackers are breaking the systems for profit. Before, it was about intellectual curiosity and pursuit of knowledge and thrill, and now hacking is big business.”
“Hacking is exploiting security controls either in a technical, physical or a human-based element.”
“I believe in having each device secured and monitoring each device, rather than just monitoring holistically on the network, and then responding in short enough time for damage control.”
“I characterize myself as a retired hacker. I’m applying what I know to improve security at companies.”
“I get hired to hack into computers now and sometimes it’s actually easier than it was years ago.”
Awesome education about security with @kevinmitnick today @Microsoft @lenovo @intel #lockitdown pic.twitter.com/dt6hstR3vq
— Ramon Ray (@ramonray) June 13, 2017
“I got so passionate about technology. Hacking to me was like a video game. It was about getting trophies. I just kept going on and on, despite all the trouble I was getting into, because I was hooked.”
“I made stupid decisions as a kid, or as a young adult, but I’m trying to be now, I’m trying to take this lemon and make lemonade.”
“I was addicted to hacking, more for the intellectual challenge, the curiosity, the seduction of adventure; not for stealing, or causing damage or writing computer viruses.”
“I was an accomplished computer trespasser. I don’t consider myself a thief. I copied without permission.”
“I was fascinated with the phone system and how it worked; I became a hacker to get better control over the phone company.”
“I was hooked in before hacking was even illegal.”
“I was pretty much the government’s poster boy for what I had done.”
“I wasn’t a hacker for the money, and it wasn’t to cause damage.”
“I went from being a kid who loved to perform magic tricks to becoming the world’s most notorious hacker, feared by corporations and the government.”
“I’m still a hacker. I get paid for it now. I never received any monetary gain from the hacking I did before. The main difference in what I do now compared to what I did then is that I now do it with authorization.”
Live hacking demonstrations at #CREFCjune2017 by Opening Session Speaker @kevinmitnick. #hacker #CyberSecurity #CREFC #CRE #CREfinance pic.twitter.com/1Ms6mCWGDV
— CRE Finance Council (@CREFC) June 5, 2017
“It was used for decades to describe talented computer enthusiasts, people whose skill at using computers to solve technical problems and puzzles was – and is – respected and admired by others possessing similar technical skills.”
“It’s actually a smarter crime because imagine if you rob a bank, or you’re dealing drugs. If you get caught you’re going to spend a lot of time in custody. But with hacking, it’s much easier to commit the crime and the risk of punishment is slim to none.”
“It’s true, I had hacked into a lot of companies, and took copies of the source code to analyze it for security bugs. If I could locate security bugs, I could become better at hacking into their systems. It was all towards becoming a better hacker.”
“My actions constituted pure hacking that resulted in relatively trivial expenses for the companies involved, despite the government’s false claims.”
“My argument is not that I shouldn’t have been punished, but that the punishment didn’t fit the crime.”
“My primary goal of hacking was the intellectual curiosity, the seduction of adventure.”
“New security loopholes are constantly popping up because of wireless networking. The cat-and-mouse game between hackers and system administrators is still in full swing.”
“Of course I’m sure half the people there hate me and half the people like me.”
“Oracle, for example, has even hired people to dumpster dive for information about its competitor, Microsoft. It’s not even illegal, because trash isn’t covered by data secrecy laws.”
“People are prone to taking mental shortcuts. They may know that they shouldn’t give out certain information, but the fear of not being nice, the fear of appearing ignorant, the fear of a perceived authority figure – all these are triggers, which can be used by a social engineer to convince a person to override established security procedures.”
Final touches for @kevinmitnick open keynote session on a live hacking demo, look at this crazy tech setup! #upapc17 pic.twitter.com/htlhrRHQdp
— UnitedPlanners (@UnitedPlanners) June 1, 2017
“Should we fear hackers? Intention is at the heart of this discussion.”
“Social engineering bypasses all technologies, including firewalls.”
“Social engineering is using deception, manipulation and influence to convince a human who has access to a computer system to do something, like click on an attachment in an e-mail.”
“Some people think technology has the answers.”
“The hacker mindset doesn’t actually see what happens on the other side, to the victim.”
“The human. Now you know all about your target.”
“The key to social engineering is influencing a person to do something that allows the hacker to gain access to information or your network.”
“To some people I’ll always be the bad guy.”
“What I found personally to be true was that it’s easier to manipulate people rather than technology.”
“You can never protect yourself 100%. What you do is protect yourself as much as possible and mitigate risk to an acceptable degree. You can never remove all risk.”
Here is a special talk given by Kevin Mitnick as he discusses the many popularized hacks from pretexting to phishing and tailgating. One of the most famous hackers ever documented in his life, Mitnick was one of the FBI’s Most Wanted.
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