Watch Cybersecurity Expert Answers Hacking History Questions
Cybersecurity architect and NC State adjunct professor Jeff Crume sits down with WIRED to field the internet’s biggest questions about hacking—offering a tour through its origins, evolution, and why it still hinges as much on humans as on hardware.
He traces hacking’s roots back to MIT’s 1960s model train club, highlights figures like Kevin Mitnick who turned social engineering into an art, and explains how early physical access and phone-phreaking paved the way for internet-era attacks. Along the way, he answers the internet’s biggest questions, while breaking down essentials like firewalls, VPNs, the deep vs. dark web, and the shift from passwords to passkeys.
Crume’s message is simple: if you want to understand modern cybersecurity, start with its history, respect its fundamentals, and never underestimate the human factor.
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