• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Cisco Umbrella

Enterprise network security

  • Contact Sales
  • Login
    • Umbrella Login
    • Cloudlock Login
  • Why Us
    • Why Cisco Umbrella
      • Why Try Umbrella
      • Why DNS Security
      • Why Umbrella SASE
      • Our Customers
      • Customer Stories
      • Why Cisco Secure
    • Fast Reliable Cloud
      • Global Cloud Architecture
      • Cloud Network Status
      • Global Cloud Network Activity
    • Unmatched Intelligence
      • A New Approach to Cybersecurity
      • Interactive Intelligence
      • Cyber Attack Prevention
      • Umbrella and Cisco Talos Threat Intelligence
    • Extensive Integrations
      • IT Security Integrations
      • Hardware Integrations
      • Meraki Integration
      • Cisco Umbrella and SecureX
  • Products
    • Cisco Umbrella Products
      • Cisco Umbrella Cloud Security Service
      • Recursive DNS Services
      • Cisco Umbrella SIG
      • Umbrella Investigate
      • What’s New
    • Product Packages
      • Cisco Umbrella Package Comparison
      • – DNS Security Essentials Package
      • – DNS Security Advantage Package
      • – SIG Essentials Package
      • – SIG Advantage Package
      • Umbrella Support Packages
    • Functionality
      • DNS-Layer Security
      • Secure Web Gateway
      • Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)
      • Cloud Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
      • Cloud-Delivered Firewall
      • Cloud Malware Protection
      • Remote Browser Isolation (RBI)
    • Man on a laptop with headphones on. He is attending a Cisco Umbrella Live Demo
  • Solutions
    • SASE & SSE Solutions
      • Cisco Umbrella SASE
      • Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
      • What is SASE
      • What is Security Service Edge (SSE)
    • Functionality Solutions
      • Web Content Filtering
      • Secure Direct Internet Access
      • Shadow IT Discovery & App Blocking
      • Fast Incident Response
      • Unified Threat Management
      • Protect Mobile Users
      • Securing Remote and Roaming Users
    • Network Solutions
      • Guest Wi-Fi Security
      • SD-WAN Security
      • Off-Network Endpoint Security
    • Industry Solutions
      • Government and Public Sector Cybersecurity
      • Financial Services Security
      • Cybersecurity for Manufacturing
      • Higher Education Security
      • K-12 Schools Security
      • Healthcare, Retail and Hospitality Security
      • Enterprise Cloud Security
      • Small Business Cybersecurity
  • Resources
    • Content Library
      • Top Resources
      • Cybersecurity Webinars
      • Events
      • Research Reports
      • Case Studies
      • Videos
      • Datasheets
      • eBooks
      • Solution Briefs
    • International Documents
      • Deutsch/German
      • Español/Spanish
      • Français/French
      • Italiano/Italian
      • 日本語/Japanese
    • Security Definitions
      • What is Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
      • What is Security Service Edge (SSE)
      • What is a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)
      • Cyber Threat Categories and Definitions
    • For Customers
      • Support
      • Customer Success Webinars
      • Cisco Umbrella Studio
  • Trends & Threats
    • Market Trends
      • Hybrid Workforce
      • Rise of Remote Workers
      • Secure Internet Gateway (SIG)
    • Security Threats
      • How to Stop Phishing Attacks
      • Malware Detection and Protection
      • Ransomware is on the Rise
      • Cryptomining Malware Protection
      • Cybersecurity Threat Landscape
      • Global Cyber Threat Intelligence
    •  
    • Woman connecting confidently to any device anywhere
  • Partners
    • Channel Partners
      • Partner Program
      • Become a Partner
    • Service Providers
      • Secure Connectivity
      • Managed Security for MSSPs
      • Managed IT for MSPs
    •  
    • Person looking down at laptop. They are connecting and working securely
  • Blog
    • News & Product Posts
      • Latest Posts
      • Products & Services
      • Customer Focus
      • Feature Spotlight
    • Cybersecurity Posts
      • Security
      • Threats
      • Cybersecurity Threat Spotlight
      • Research
    •  
    • Register for a webinar - with illustration of connecting securely to the cloud
  • Contact Us
  • Umbrella Login
  • Cloudlock Login
  • Free Trial
Security

Stuxnet Meets Fukushima—How Realistic Is The New Blackhat Film?

Author avatar of Umbrella TeamUmbrella Team
Updated — March 27, 2020 • 4 minute read
View blog >

According to Andrew Hay, senior security research lead at OpenDNS, the storyline for Michael Mann’s new film, titled Blackhat, about an international crime ring of evil hacker masterminds was easy to identify. In a post screening interview, Hay commented on Blackhat’s plot by saying, “Mann clearly drew inspiration from real-world events. It’s basically the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster meets Stuxnet.”

While the film may be 2015’s first box-office bomb earning just $4M in its first weekend, its release was highly anticipated by the characteristically skeptical hacker community including Hay and his OpenDNS research colleague, Vinny Lariza. Although early previews reported the movie’s technical details were surprisingly accurate, Hay and Lariza weren’t convinced by the pre-release buzz. What could be more entertaining for a couple of world-class security researchers than an opportunity to weigh-in on the legitimacy of a blockbuster cyber crime thriller starring the former Norse God of Thunder? Last Friday, the film’s opening day, Hay and Lariza set out on a mission to debunk Hollywood’s latest take on modern day hacking.

Blackhat stars Chris Hemsworth (aka Thor) as a talented hacker turned cyber-criminal who evades his 14-year federal prison sentence by helping the FBI prevent world destruction at the hands of genius coders. The plot chronicles ex-con Thor as he reunites with Colonel Chen, his college roommate and an officer in the Chinese military who returned home and now heads up the country’s Cyber Defense Organization. While the world teeters on the brink of disaster as it faces hacker-induced stock market anomalies and a mysterious natural disaster caused by malware in a ‘connected’ cooling system, Thor manages to spark an awkward romance with Chen’s sister, furiously pound-type on abnormally resilient keyboards, write code at a superhuman pace, and (spoiler alert) eliminate evil-doing hackers with his impressive collection of screwdrivers.

How did Blackhat stand up under the scrutiny of real-world security experts who live and breathe hacking on a daily basis? Overall, Blackhat clearly benefitted from knowledgeable security advisors but according to the OpenDNS researchers, there were some scenes where the film misrepresented the realities of coding, forensics, and security in general.

Here are some of their most noteworthy observations:

NSA Phishing and The Black Widow Supercomputer:

A major plot twist in this cyber tale involved a NSA supercomputing service called Black Widow. Black Widow was supposedly a system that, according to Hay and Lariza, would have taken anywhere from hours to months to upload. Thor, however, uploaded the entire system with the ease and speed of an Amazon 1-click purchase. Additionally, in order to access the highly classified and protected Black Widow service, Thor first had to outsmart an NSA agent with an obvious phishing email. The malicious email was sent to the agent “from his boss” and instructed him to change his password. Oddly, before the agent changed his password, he clicked on an attached PDF file named “Policy on Changing Your Password.” After the agent had reviewed the policy, downloaded a keylogger, and changed his password, Thor successfully gained access to the system. From the Web GUI for top secret software to the agent’s remarkable lack of security smarts, Hay and Lariza gave this scenario a zero out of ten in the accuracy category.

TOR Setup Just Isn’t That Hard:

Another favorite scene involved Thor’s love interest explaining how the villain hacker was using DD-WRT firmware combined with TOR to anonymize his identity without an IP address. In reference to TOR, Thor exclaims, “someone must have set it up for him!” Hay and Lariza  found this conclusion interesting given Thor, an expert hacker, was seemingly unaware that a very quick Google search would yield directions for this highly technical “setup”:Screen Shot 2015-01-20 at 2.34.33 PM

Miraculous Hard Drive Selection:

Hay and Lariza were also amused at Thor’s hard drive selection skills. Miraculously, when faced with selecting the right hard drive from a rack of over 50 boxes, he easily pulls the exact one that was storing the Jakarta-saving data needed to track down the villain hacker. Hay pointed out, “Random hard drive selection equals the keys to the kingdom” is not realistic, at all.

Sloppy and Meaningless Code:

There were several examples of sample code displayed throughout the film and while most of it appeared accurate, Hay recognized instances of ‘sloppy code’ – the kind computer science professors at Stanford would frown on. For example, “cp source destination” is correct but was written incorrectly in one scene as “cpsource destination” (not everyone is skilled enough to notice a missing space on the big screen). Other issues that put Blackhat’s technical accuracy in a less than legitimate light? In one scene, the malware code in question was displayed as hexadecimal on the left side of the screen with a mix of ridiculous characters and random English phrases on the right. According to Hay and Lariza – and probably most people who have used a hex editor before – this code would not, in fact, mean anything, let alone save the world from bad actors (pun intended).

Overall, the team found Thor unconvincing in his role as a brilliant computer mastermind, but when measured against some other Hollywood attempts to dramatize hacking, Hay and Lariza gave the film a respectable 8 out of 10 for technical accuracy. Although relatively accurate, Blackhat still feeds Hollywood’s ongoing dramatization of hacking as a dark art practiced by modern day super villains.

Hay and Lariza’s Favorite Hacker Movie Picks:

Films about hacking are tough to do well, and according to Hay there hasn’t been a success in the genre since 1992. He recommends John Badham’s Wargames and Phil Alden Robinson’s Sneakers as films that successfully portray computer science on the big screen.

Suggested Blogs

  • Cisco Umbrella Delivered Better Cybersecurity and 231% ROI February 21, 2023 2 minute read
  • Cisco Listed as a Representative Vendor in Gartner® Market Guide for Single-Vendor SASE January 26, 2023 3 minute read
  • How to Evaluate SSE Vendors: Questions to Ask, Pitfalls to Avoid June 23, 2022 5 minute read

Share this blog

FacebookTweetLinkedIn

Follow Us

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube

Footer Sections

What we make

  • Cloud Security Service
  • DNS-Layer Network Security
  • Secure Web Gateway
  • Security Packages

Who we are

  • Global Cloud Architecture
  • Cloud Network Status
  • Cloud Network Activity
  • OpenDNS is now Umbrella
  • Cisco Umbrella Blog

Learn more

  • Webinars
  • Careers
  • Support
  • Cisco Umbrella Live Demo
  • Contact Sales
Umbrella by Cisco
208.67.222.222+208.67.220.220
2620:119:35::35+2620:119:53::53
Sign up for a Free Trial
  • Cisco Online Privacy Statement
  • Terms of Service
  • Sitemap

© 2023 Cisco Umbrella