The media, particularly television, plays a significant role in shaping people’s
understanding and perception of cybersecurity and hacking. In the past, movie scenes shared
unrealistic cybersecurity practices, what most analyzers consider programming jargon. For
instance, “Tron Legacy” perfectly portrays what most films considered hacking in the 1980s. In
one of the scenes, the characters depict hacking as accessing a machine and installing malicious
software. However, even though installing software like SO12 could have added a few bugs into
the system, such an action is not hacking because the character was breaking into a house and
accessing a computer that was not password protected, encrypted, and required any other
authorization (Wired, 2019). A similar hacking technique was demonstrated in the movie “The X
Files”, where a hacker accesses government files on a computer that does not request a password
to log in (Wired, 2021a). Thus, in the past, the media shared unrealistic hacking skills that were
intriguing for the viewers but could not happen in real life.
In the current media, the understanding of cybersecurity and hacking has changed as
people can differentiate between realistic and unrealistic representations of hacking and what
makes it possible. For instance, the movie Silicon Valley S4E9 portrays a realistic scene were
hackers log in to people’s accounts using a Wi-Fi Pineapple device made by Hak5. If a hacker
carries the devices even in their backpack, they can hack any phone or computer around their
vicinity by tricking them into logging into the device instead of the intended legitimate access
point without telling the difference (Insider, 2021). Therefore, the representation of hacking and
cybersecurity practices in the current media has advanced because instead of sharing unrealistic
programming terminologies, it shows accurate hacking techniques that hackers could use to
access unauthorized or encrypted systems or devices.

References
Insider. (2021). Hacker Rates 12 Hacking Scenes in Movies and TV | How Real Is It? [Video].
YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BqpU4V0Ypk
Wired. (2019). Hacker breaks down 26 hacking scenes from movies & TV [Video].
YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZQz9tkEHIg
Wired. (2021a). Hacker breaks down hacking scenes from movies & TV [Video].