Viruses and hacking, as seen on TV and in the movies

Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
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Working in the computer security industry, we’re pretty used to seeing malware and hacking misrepresented on our TV and movie screens.

The truth is that normally malware is pretty humdrum. There’s nothing much to see (after all, if a piece of malware announces its presence, it sort of makes it obvious to the computer’s owner that they have an infection), and any damage done is normally hard to present on the screen.

Spooks and the DDoS submarine
BBC TV drama “Spooks”, which follows the complicated lives of MI5 agents, has flirted with malware and hacking on multiple occasions – almost always unrealistically.

For instance, the episode where the secret service uncovers a plot by Russia to destroy the British economy by launching a DDoS attack against all the country’s computers. How are the Ruskies going to achieve it? By using a submarine, of course.

Not just any old submarine, but one which can intercept deep sea internet communications cables in the…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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