The Psychological Profiles of Script Kiddies and Crackers

Script kiddies are individuals who are less technologically sophisticated than “crackers” and whose targets tend to be random without significant malicious premeditation. Comparable analogies are juvenile delinquent crimes, such as spray painting random cars or damaging mailboxes in a local neighborhood. “A script kiddie is not looking to target specific information or a specific company but rather uses knowledge of a vulnerability to scan the entire Internet for a victim that possesses that vulnerability” (Webopedia.com, 2003). Some script kiddies know what they are doing and leave back doors on systems so that they can further exploit them at any time while others know just enough to operate the tool they are using for exploitation. They are high school students who are bored with life or have a need to “get away” from their current social, economic, or emotional problems. “It is a way to escape a lot of the bullshit that I get in real life, because I do no

Both script kiddies and crackers take advantage of system vulnerabilities. They possess different mentalities yet employ some of the same tactics. Some consider these individuals nuisances, while others regard them as entertaining or rogue geniuses. Society’s perspective on these groups will differ for many years to come.

Consider the following illustration from the movie Swordfish. Character Stanley Jobson developed a tool to break in to a national bank for the purpose of transferring illegal funds to criminal Gabriel Shier’s personal bank accounts. Jobson found vulnerabilities in the banking systems security. He exploited them utilizing a worm he developed five years prior. The result was a series of illegal transfers from offshore bank accounts to his employers. The act was pre-meditated, contained malice, and resulted in huge financial losses for the bank.

The methodology of script kiddies is simple. More often than not there is no elaborate planning or pre-meditated malice involved. Script kiddies tend to randomly select their targets and decide on how they desire to exploit discovered system vulnerabilities “on the fly”. Just as juvenile delinquents randomly spray paints cars, script kiddies randomly exploit system security. The acts consist of web page defacement, inconveniencing users with annoying messages, and adding distracting nuisances (such as noises and pop-ups), among other tactics. Please examine the following passage from the “Know Your Enemy” article:

The legislature has been slow to create laws to regulate this criminal activity. Despite the heinous acts of crackers, there are some who admire them for their activities. For example, a cracker finds a way to make a local ATM (Automated Teller Machine) spew out all of its money at 12:00pm. Naturally, some individuals will consider this a spectacular event either because of the idea of “free money,” or perhaps by finding some comical relief that someone was able to exploit the system. Sometimes people’s admiration comes from the astonishment that the individual was able to “

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