Most hackers are not hoodie-wearing crooks in dark rooms

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When asked what his father did for a living, my son explained to his kindergarten teacher that "he steals things, but it's OK because he gets paid to do it".

He wasn't wrong. I'm a hacker, and I run a team of hackers. We spend our days discovering ways to break into anything that can connect to the Internet - servers, automated teller machines, light bulbs, for example - in an attempt to access information that was never meant to be seen. If we get to it before a criminal does, then we've done our job.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on November 09, 2019, with the headline Most hackers are not hoodie-wearing crooks in dark rooms. Subscribe