Aims
This course aims to:
• understand the history of hackers
• learn how criminal hackers have monetised their skills
• examine how hackers have enabled a global cyber espionage proliferation
Content
Hackers hold an esteemed yet enigmatic position in today's society. Few truly understand them.
In this course, you'll delve into their history and culture, questioning whether the stereotypical portrayals of socially inept or dangerous hackers are accurate. You'll explore the origins of hacker culture and its evolution from a monoculture to the diverse community it is today.
We'll dive into the conceptual framework of hacking, focusing on the 'cyber kill-chain' and the critical considerations at each stage of a cyberattack. You'll also investigate how hackers have illicitly monetized their skills, posing significant threats to societal stability. Ransomware, capable of crippling computers, has already disrupted critical energy supplies and forced hospital departments to shut down.
Furthermore, you'll examine how some criminal hackers operate under the protection of their home nations, especially when their targets are perceived as their government’s adversaries. We’ll also explore how victims use cyber security, law enforcement, diplomacy, and covert operations to counter these threats.
Finally, you'll study how hackers have commercialised their skills by developing hacking frameworks and selling them to governments worldwide. This proliferation has significantly impacted international relations, equipping states with advanced hacking capabilities they otherwise couldn't access.
By the end of this course, you'll have a comprehensive understanding of hackers and their influential role in international security.
Presentation of the course
This course will be delivered in a lecturing format.
Course sessions
1. Security in the Digital Age - Overviews the Internet’s evolution & introduces key security challenges within this history.
2. Hackers: Origins - Charts the genesis of hackers, from their mid-twentieth century origins
to present incarnations.
3. Anatomy of Hacking - Dissects how attackers breach networks & achieve their objectives
(eg disruption, data theft).
4. Cybercrime - Explores how criminal hackers exploit the Internet for profit.
5. Cyber Proliferation - Surveys how hacking capabilities have spread around the world.
Learning outcomes
You are expected to gain from this series of classroom sessions a greater understanding of the subject and of the core issues and arguments central to the course.
The learning outcomes for this course are:
• to understand hacking culture
• studying the conceptual steps of hacking
• learning how criminal hacking has become industrialised
• to analyse how hackers have sold their capabilities to governments around the world
Required reading
Levy, S, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, (New York: O'Reilly, 1984)
Mitnick, K, Ghost In The Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker, (Little, Brown & Company, 2011)
Perlroth, N, This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyber Weapons Arms Race (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021)
