Welcome to another volume of Bugcrowd’s newest docuseries, Unsolved Cyber Mysteries. We hope you enjoyed our first volume covering the unsettling tale of the Max Headroom signal hijacking.
It’s time to join Bugcrowd Founder and CTO (Chief Terror Officer) Casey Ellis for another spooky episode about the original act of hacktivism.
Episode 2: WANK Worm
“Hacktivism” is a form of digital activism that leverages technological expertise to promote social or political change. It operates in a virtual realm, often employing tactics like website defacement or exposure of sensitive information. Hacktivism has become more prominent in the news cycle due to the collective known as Anonymous. Anonymous is a loosely organized group of individuals who engage in various forms of digital protest.
Before Anonymous and Hacktivism was widely known, there was the iconic WANK Worm. WANK Worm is a prime example of how hacking can be used to get your message across.
The story of WANK Worm begins in 1989, during a year of particular political unrest. Between the Berlin Wall and the Tiananmen Square massacre, many activists were making their voices heard.
One of the many controversial events of the year was the planned launch of NASA’s Galileo Probe. This was controversial because many saw the plutonium-powered satellite as the first step toward the nuclearization of space. Two days before the mission launched, NASA employees showed up to work to find a bizarre message popping up on their screens.
“Your system has been officially WANKed.”
Watch this episode to find out what happened with this giggle-inducing worm, the impact it had on NASA, and the daunting risks and costs of hacktivism.
