It's not all about money

When a cybercriminal breaches an organization’s data and financial systems, management automatically begins investigating the culprit’s financial motives. But often hackers are just curious to see if they can invade mainframes. Or they’re bored and want to have some fun. Here’s how to investigate cybercriminals’ minds, understand their nuanced purposes and then prevent more breaches.

Ian Bing, a database administrator for Lianjia, a Chinese real estate brokerage, was frustrated. He’d reported that the company’s security of its financial system was lax, but apparently his bosses had dismissed his concerns. Perhaps he wanted to prove them wrong, so on June 4, 2018, he invaded and destroyed four of Lianjia’s servers and made sure nothing could be recovered. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for his IT devastation.