Hackers Becoming Consultants

W A S H I N G T O N,   Jan. 6 -- Who ya gonna call? Hackers?

Some of the Internet’s most adept online snoops are hoping big business soon will be chanting that Ghosbusters-like refrain: These hackers are forming a new company to advise the world’s largest banks and hospitals how to keep their data safe from cyber-intruders.

Members of the Boston-based L0pht Heavy Industries, who once boasted to the Senate that any one of them could cripple the Internet in the United States within 30 minutes, today were announcing the creation of their consulting company, @Stake. They say they have more than $10 million in funding from venture capitalists.

That Mudge Is Certain

The new vice president of research and development — widely considered among the world’s leading hackers — will continue to use only his online handle, “Mudge,” to identify himself.

“The U.S. Senate referred to me as Mudge. Mom and Dad refer to me as Mudge,” he told The Associated Press. “I figure, why break the streak?”

L0pht (pronounced “loft”), whose eight members sold software to crack the passwords of Microsoft Windows NT computers and to detect other hackers secretly monitoring a network, will disband as an organization. All its members — with such colorful monikers as “Space Rogue,” “Dildog,” “Weld Pond” and “Brian Oblivion” — will join the new company, based in Cambridge, Mass.

Testified Before Senate

Wearing business suits, the group described as a “hacker think tank” testified about lax computer security before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in May 1998. They said any of them could easily bring down the Internet in North America, although other experts dismissed the claims as exaggerated.

Committee Chairman Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., allowed L0pht’s members to use only their online handles “due to the sensitivity of their work,” although they are widely interviewed by national media. ABC’s Sam Donaldson talked with “Space Rogue” in October.