![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/movies-hackers-600.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
On a recent weekend, I watched two movies, each of which used an element of computer security as a plot point. In one case, there was an example of extremely lax security, the kind of worst practice<\/em> that we constantly warn against. In the other, someone was hacked by a seemingly magical device that, just by its presence near a character’s computer, allowed another character to access the computer and copy files.<\/p>\n For expediency, computer security and hacking tend to be portrayed unrealistically in movies and on TV, in part because realism would slow things down. But this depiction gives the wrong idea to users who watch these films and are influenced by what they see. Viewers expect verisimilitude in movies and TV shows, and directors and show runners often go to great lengths to present the world correctly (unless it’s a fantasy movie or TV series), through extensive use of consultants. But rarely is computer security depicted accurately.<\/p>\n (Warning: minor spoiler alert)<\/em><\/p>\n The first movie I saw recently was The Good Liar, with Ian McKellen and Hellen Mirren. McKellen plays a con man, and it quickly becomes obvious that he’s the one who is going to be conned by Mirren’s character. At one point, they agree to put their funds in a joint account\u2014\u00a32.7 million for one, and \u00a33.8 million for the other\u2014via some sort of tablet that the supposed bank in the Cayman Islands has provided to them, via a financial advisor (working with McKellen). The need a password, and one of the characters points to a painting on the wall, to suggest something easy to remember: lilies. A six-character, lowercase letters-only password. To protect \u00a36.5 million.<\/p>\n The second movie was Focus, with Will Smith and Margot Robbie. This was another con-artist film, with both characters working together, then apart, then sort-of together again. At one point, Smith’s character gives Robbie’s character a necklace, and she takes it back to her hotel room and drops it in her suitcase. But, aha! This necklace contains a miniature device that hacks into her boyfriend’s computer, even though he’s using an advanced hardware device that changes its login password every 15 minutes. The device allows Smith’s character to access important data.<\/p>\n Neither of these plot devices affect the plot’s apparent truthfulness, yet they present one very bad practice (the six-character password) and one nearly magical device. Of course, these examples are almost coherent, compared to some of the ideas seen in movies and on TV.<\/p>\n One of the most ridiculous tropes of film hacking is what happens when criminals or hackers crack passwords, PINs, or digital bank safe locks. Some call this the “password slot machine<\/a>” trope. Passwords are not cracked like physical locks, where you can manually pick one tumbler at a time, but as whole units. There’s no way to figure out one character of a password at a time, since passwords themselves aren’t actually stored or validated this way. Hashes<\/a>, which are the result of mathematical operations performed on passwords, are what is actually stored, and this makes it impossible to find the original password (or any individual characters therein) from the hash.<\/p>\n When hackers try to crack a system or breach a firewall, there is always a way to know how much progress they’ve made, and how close they are to success, right? Movies and TV shows often display progress indicators when hackers are doing their deeds. They show the progress of a hack or breach as it is occurring, as if it is something that can be timed. These progress indicators display sometimes in a standard horizontal bar, like what you see when you’re installing software, and sometimes as numbers counting up or down. One example is this scene from the TV series Castle, where you can see progress percentages increase as the hack nears completion (along with many, many other hacking tropes).<\/p>\nThe Good Liar (2019) and Focus (2015)<\/h3>\n
Passwords<\/h3>\n
Hacking progress<\/h3>\n