Hacker convention mined by feds for recruits

If you can't beat the hackers, join them. Or rather, get them to join you.

CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports that the latest national security recruiting drive revolves around that very idea.

The 19th annual Def-Con in Las Vegas is a convention of free spirits, free thinkers, geeks and hackers, like the one who calls himself "Mar."

"I think the hacker mindset is tinkering with stuff anywhere from hardware to software," Mar says.

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Recently, Def-Con has drawn more and more unlikely conventioneers: clean cut, buttoned-down representatives of the U.S. government.

DOD, NSA, DHS, NASA, CID - it's an alphabet soup of federal agencies wandering the floor and hosting panels.

"If there's folks with wild red hair that have skills and have an interest and a wherewithal to be a federal agent, those are the kinds of folks we want to reach," says Daron Hartvigsen, US Air Force, Cyber Investigations and Operations.

A look inside the NSA's cyber crime headquarters.

/ CBS News

CBS News got some first-ever pictures inside the top-secret National Security Agency's Cyber Command (at left), the hub for defending against computer attacks. Deputy Defense Secretary, William Lynn, told CBS News that cyberattackers are finding the U.S. with its defenses down.

"The technology for intrusion is far ahead of the technology for defenses and we need to catch up," Lynn says.

Unidentified cyberattackers penetrated Pentagon firewalls this year and stole plans for the war in Afghanistan, designs for satellites, drones and a top-secret, next-generation fighter plane.

Top computer security firm McAfee reported this week it had found hackers rummaging through computers of 70 corporations and organizations, including the U.S. Department of Energy, the International Olympic Committee, the United Nations.

The loss of trade secrets to hackers costs U.S. companies as much as $20 billion a year. The loss of government secrets to cyber-espionage is incalculable.

"Protecting information, securing information is crucial," says Ahmed Saleh with the NASA Computer Crimes Division.

The Air Force's Daron Hartvigsen says it's more important than that.

"It's a national security issue, actually," Hartvigsen says.

So, the federal agencies went to Las Vegas to an important hacker convention, seeking the next generation of national defenders -- cyberwarriors.

"The government can't solve this problem by itself," says Tony Sager with the NSA. "There is no end state to security, so it's constant learning, part of what makes it exciting, but challenging."

The Def-Con convention of computer wizards is what the fighting force of the future looks like.

[train99]

How are you ever going to eliminate hacking as an illegal activity if you give awards and jobs to people who do it best?
What a sick, sick country.

[Overruled1]

It became a necessity when the hackers are smarter than the programmers hired by companies to make programs silly.

The feds need as many hackers to work on the threat we face daily from China. They are actively attacking our formerly rated AAA nation.

[the0racle]

Gov Tech can't even stop UCE. Or maybe they don't want to as they are already in bed with the hacking community. Which is probably a front for big business like Mcafee and Symantec. Govt obviously would want remote access to all citizen's computer data. What better way than to scare everyone into loading intrusion detection software that allows certain somebodies to intrude without detection?

[Harden_Tar]

We are the country that invented the nerd and we should get the best and brightest of them to go kick China's butt back to the Pentium I days. I don't care if they have blue and orange hair and a couple dozen facial piercings. Pay them, give them the best gear, unlimited Skittles, and turn them loose.

[Gamesman001]

Yes all they have to do to pursue a job in the the Nat. Sec. is sell their souls to the government. Or do you think our government doesn't spy on it's own people?

[SunDog8259]

The correct term is "Cracker" not "Hacker"

[tmittelstaed]

Crackers are people who break things. Hackers are people who come in and get what they want and leave without breaking anything or leaving behind any evidence that they were ever there.

[boehhher]

In mainstream press, the word "hacker" is often used to refer to a malicious security cracker. There is a classic definition of the term "hacker", arising from its first documented uses related to information technologies at MIT, that is at odds with the way the term is usually used by journalists. The inheritors of the technical tradition of the word "hacker" as it was used at MIT sometimes take offense at the sloppy use of the term by journalists and others who are influenced by journalistic inaccuracy.
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/security/hacker-vs-cracker/1400

[stuwerb]

National Security, duuuuuude!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Americank17]

it shows how backward they are in internet technology! and how desperate they are to become players in the hackers(idiots)game! These hackers go about scamming and spamming and dropping viruses all over the internet! This is the most absurd action that these Feds have taken!

[Americank17]

It is unfathomably and incredibly absurd that the federal agencies in charge of security will hire the same people that are attacking them! Is that a very "Stupid" Decision or what is it?

[tmittelstaed]

The point of Defcon is for the white-hats to all go boast to each other about how they uncovered the latest flaw or crack. None of the people demonstrating new cracks at Defcon have released information to the cracking community about how to do their crack before Defcon because they don't want to be upstaged, there is also a lot of money at stake. For example in the past Apple has offered tens of thousands of dollars in prize money at Defcon to anyone who can break into their secure MacOS (they finally had to stop doing this because they always ended up paying out the prize money)

In general the particulars of a new crack are released direct to the software vendors and only released to the general public after the software vendor has released a patch.

The black hat criminals tend to stay away from Defcon because if your income is derived from criminal activities you generally don't want to become known to people.

[Berkeley-SkirtLifter]

Good!