Rob O'Hara asks the interesting question ... / 2011-06-14

Rob O'Hara asks the interesting question Are all Hacks really Sophisticated? after seeing the word 'sophisticated' one time too many in the news about the recent network break-ins at Sony and the IMF.

A good question. A lot of this stuff seems more a case of systems and data with lots and lots of attack surfaces and attackers finding that one weak spot. The only people who get this right almost always are the military, but they are not afraid to put security way ahead on the balance of security versus usability.
Update 2011-06-15: Latest news on this front:

Hackers who stole bank account details for 200,000 Citigroup customers infiltrated the company's system by exploiting a garden-variety security hole in the company's website for credit card users, according to a report citing an unnamed security investigator.

Source: Citigroup hack exploited easy-to-detect web flaw - The Register