These cybersecurity movies present many similarities to what goes on in the real world. These movies are must-haves on your watchlist for the weekend.
WarGames
This 1983 movie was one of the first cybersecurity movies. The story focuses on David, a slacker but also a computer genius. In the movie, he attempts to hack into a computer game company. While doing so, he came across an anonymous system that lets him play games. He learned from others about a backdoor password when he reached the dead end.
Later on, he’s playing a new game. Yet, this is no game – it’s a nuclear missile platform. You’ll see how David deals with the computer system. Moreover, David looks somewhat like the real hackers in this world – smart yet bored by the traditional school system. Furthermore, David is a curious and intuitive guy that characterizes many in the cybersecurity field.
Takedown
Takedown is one of the oldest cybersecurity movies. This movie presents the true story of infamous hacker Kevin David Mitnick and his nemesis Tsutomu Shimomura. In this movie, Shimomura was the whitehat while Mitnick was the blackhat. Takedown shows a fairly accurate background of the hacking world. Moreover, the characters in the movie show certain impulsive and savant type personalities.
Sneakers
The story of this early 90s movie revolves around a group of security system experts. The movie depicts them as whitehat hackers that are forced to steal a decryption device for the government. Whitehat hackers are experts that hack to strengthen one’s defense or as a way to find information.
The Social Network
David Kirkpatrick is the author of the Facebook effect. He said that the movie only has 40% accuracy and includes a lot of fictional effects. Yet, it’s still worth watching. This US biographical drama narrates Facebook’s story and its founder Mark Zuckerberg. The movie got its inspiration from the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich.
There are just many lessons to learn from this movie. It shows true friendship, loneliness, love, and betrayal. Moreover, we’ll also witness in this movie how a man transformed an idea into a huge multi-billion dollar empire.
WarGames: The Dead Code
This movie was nominated for the Academy Awards and has been considered quite influential. This is about the hunt of U.S. Homeland Security on the two teenagers who accidentally hack into the U.S. military supercomputer. The government programmed that supercomputer to predict and execute a nuclear war against the Soviet Union.
Mr. Robot
The hacking scenes in the series are very realistic and genuine. Hence, chances are that you’ll get hooked on this series. The story focuses on Elliot Alderson, a talented hacker and cybersecurity engineer. Alderson suffers from clinical depression but his life changed when Mr. Robot invites him to be a member of a group of hacktivists.
The group’s mission is to destroy the world’s largest financial conglomerate. The hackers in this movie used genuine hacking methods.
The Imitation Game
This is an Oscar-nominated movie with Benedict Cumberbatch as the lead role. The movie’s timeline is during World War 2. The story is about a genius British mathematician Alan Turing recruited by a newly created British agency. Turing’s task was to crack Germany’s enigma code.
Indeed, cybersecurity is very different today compared to the one in the movie. However, it’s still relevant because these are the types of national security applications still used up to our time.
