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The Hacker Challenge
The famous (or infamous) poster child hacker Kevin Mitnick once admitted that it was a challenge for him to hack a system to claim bragging rights in the Darknet community. It seems he wanted to win this one call-in contest for the prize being offered. The funny part of it was Kevin didn’t remember what he won, but he remembered everything about how he beat their security and hacked the system.
There are many legends and stories in the Darknet community. One such persistent tale suggests another brilliant hacker who has gone by many handles but is commonly known as Zara. Using her Ukrainian charm laced with her sultry and provocative accent, it is said of her that she beat the one time boast of the New York tax records office of being totally secure. The IT manager widely proclaimed his network was impervious against the cyber-attacks leveled at other departments in the city.
Keep in mind, these systems hold a complete inventory of who owns what, where the what is, and, most importantly, is the basis for extracting money from the owners so the city can offer the services needed by everyone. New York City has the most massive municipal budget in the United States at $86 billion a year. Their IT manager is responsible for making the data infrastructure bulletproof to allow for routine revenues from taxes. With that much at stake, he air-gapped the desperately critical backend systems…
