Hopefully I can be forgiven. B ut Mitnick tried to distinguish between snoops who break into someone's network for the fun and challenge of it and hackers who actually disclose what they find. He categorized himself as the former. Mitnick was skeptical about some claims surrounding the Microsoft attack, including one that Microsoft itself was watching the hacker. When something as important as source code is involved, companies are less likely to monitor a hacker's activities than to kick the person out of the network, he said.
Nobody's immune from attack.
He said the reports he has read about the attack indicate Microsoft employees either didn't have the most updated anti-virus software or were using static passwords to gain access, which he said was surprising. Now the whole world knows they're using static passwords. That's a huge vulnerability. Motivation for the attack could range from mischief to malicious corporate espionage to an opportunity to embarrass Microsoft, Mitnick said. The hacker or hackers could put a back door in widely used software so anyone purchasing the software would be vulnerable, he said.