A hacker once convicted of breaking into the United Nation’s computer network has been to Liverpool to show firms in the North West just how insecure their IT systems really are. Aintree-based Stack Group invited superhacker Matthew Beddoes – once known by the pseudonym the Black Dragon – to speak to businesses to de-mystify the world of computer hacking and demonstrate precisely how easy it can be to break into a system if businesses do not take proper precautions.

Traditional security features bypassed

Using a £30 Raspberry Pi computer, which is commonly used to teach schoolchildren about basic computer programming, Beddoes hacked into delegates’ smartphones and explained how the simple system could bypass traditional security features including the well known https, used by banks and indicated by a small padlock in the top corner of an internet browser.

'All this code is free and publicly available,'  the Shropshire-born expert said, adding that  'Basically with some very cheap kit I could hack into every smartphone on a coffee shop wifi system where people might be looking at work emails, bank details or shopping online. I can see all that information and even plant code into their device that will send me all their access keys and passwords. Then I’d have full access to their network.'
He warned delegates: 'Don’t be fooled by someone telling you your data is secure. If you are accessing the system wirelessly, it is never secure.'

Expertise

Beddoes was caught stealing carbon credits from the United Nations to sell on. He was jailed for three years and now offers his expertise to businesses to help them identify areas of security weakness. 'Users of our system benefit from their data being pre-encrypted which counteracts some data-destroying and data stealing viruses and programmes,' said Jeff Orr, CEO of Stack Group. 'Live hacking is a different kind of threat. Beddoes has demonstrated that no system is ever 100 per cent  secure. He showed too, via the ‘Dark Web’, that there are businesses that will pay a lot of money to hackers to breach competitors systems to either steal corporate data or shut-down networks.'

'By investing in the best protection you can afford, you can at least give yourself some peace of mind. Be aware of your system’s weaknesses and of the risks to your business networks, particularly when connecting wirelessly to public networks.' And he added: 'It is worth noting that at the event Beddoes confessed that despite throwing everything at it for almost a month he failed to breach our WatchGuard XTM Firewall!'

Stack Group provides a range of technology services including cloud computing, virtualisation, data storage, backup and security. www.stack.co.uk