Confessions of a former hacker

Kevin Mitnick, who served five years in federal prison for breaking into phone and software company networks, now is a computer security consultant for hire, helping companies protect themselves from people like himself. Besides preaching new found ethical behavior, Mitnick tells CIO.com that many companies do not take security seriously, even knowing the consequences. He said companies have him do security audits to find their vulnerabilities and then surprisingly don't fix the problems. He revels in the irony of being paid to legally break into systems. "It's interesting that you can take a criminal activity like hacking and make it into a legitimate enterprise. I can't think of any other illegal activity you can do that with," he said.

For more on legal hacking:
- see this CIO.com article