Equal-Opportunity Stupidity

The bad guys might not be as smart as we fear they are.

Where are the stories of stupid hackers and data thieves? We seem to be idolizing them as smart, crafty and wise. No matter what we do, they seem to find a way into our networks. If our technological controls are tight, they’ll use social engineering. If our people are suspicious, they’ll find some new Internet Explorer vulnerability. Forget criminal elements and genius bit-twiddlers: Sometimes it feels like we have to be perfect just to keep the script kiddies at bay.

That’s another way of asking: Do the black hats have all the smart folks, while the white hats have all the dummies? Nope. Stupidity reigns in the underworld as well. Last year, Edward Krastof, a Home Depot employee in Concord, California, was arrested for stealing the names, Social Security numbers, bank account numbers and addresses of thousands of Wells Fargo customers.

Krastof confessed to stealing the computer and some artwork from the home of a consultant working for Wells Fargo. When asked about the data on the computer, Krastof denied knowing that the computer had sensitive data on it.

Although it’s hard to not be skeptical of his claim, he might not be lying. He might, instead, just be stupid. Consider that he was caught because he used the computer to log on to the Internet using the AOL account belonging to the consultant. AOL had been warned by the authorities to watch for logons to the account, and the location was easily traced to Krastof’s home. The laptop was in the house, right next to the stolen artwork hanging on the wall. (Hint to computer thieves: Don’t access the Internet using an account belonging to the computer’s owner. But if you do, don’t do it from your home.)