My opinion, for preventing ID theft, is – step 1 – to research and deal with the roots of the problems caused by it; rather than – step 2 – trying to make everyone aware on how to protect his or her ID. For example, if a system administrator effectively maintained the security of an enterprise server, we wouldn’t have a security breach and thousands of credit card details and personal info would be safe!

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In less than 200 words, I compiled very interesting information on the subjects of website defacing and hacktivism. Enough information is provided to you in order to answer my question which follows at the end. I would like to know your personal views.

Website defacement [2] is the substitution of an original home page by a system cracker/hacker. It is illegal in most countries as is considered an unauthorized computer access, data modification and denial of service. Crackers/hackers are usually defacing websites to spread messages and beliefs. Some of them are politically, socially and religiously motivated – given the term hacktivists – and some other just deface for the thrill.

A website defacement can create serious problems for companies as it they affects negatively their public image on the internet and in general. Victim companies may stop their transactions in order to repair the affected computer systems and thus lose money. It can also make their existing customers or potential future customers to lose faith in the company as it is evidence that their web server was broken into due to lack of security.

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Both Kevin Mitnick (http://www.defensivethinking.com ) and Kevin Poulsen (http://www.securityfocus.com & http://www.wired.com ) are currently successful in the Information Security field because of their past computer crimes [1] and the attention that they received through the news media. They are not the only ones though!

Their professional success that followed after serving jail time, created a trend that young “wannabe hackers” follow: They expect a bright future career and in order to achieve that, they hope to get busted for hacking.

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