The Queen's Gambit

The Queen's Gambit: Why an Aggressive Hacker Doesn't Need as Much Skill as You Think

Assuming an equal skill set, an aggressive chess player will almost always beat a passive opponent.

What is The Queen's Gambit (the actual move)?

White opens by moving the pawn in front of their queen two spaces. You’re not sure what their angle is, so you play it safe and match.

Next, they move the pawn in front of their bishop two spaces. You know enough to know that taking a pawn would give you an advantage. After all, the goal is to fend off white’s attackers. So, you take the pawn.

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You’ve just walked right into the Queen’s Gambit.

The Queen’s Gambit clears a lane for the surviving white pawn and makes it much easier for your opponent to control the middle of the board.

It is one of the oldest known openings in chess. It is a very simple move to learn, and there are several simple ways to counter it. If you don’t see it coming, however—or even if you manage to identify it but don’t know how to counter it—you can give your opponent a massive advantage and lose the game before you really start.

Cybersecurity works the same way

When we think of hackers, we tend to envision highly skilled bad actors with years of experience and a vast array of cyber tricks up their sleeves. You’ve seen the visuals: the dark hoodie hunched over a screen filled with scrolling numbers and code none of us non-tech-savvy folks could begin to decipher. But this is far from the truth in most cases. When it comes to skill level, cybercriminals as a demographic aren’t that different from chess players. They run the entire gamut, from extremely skilled to beginner-level. And while there are highly skilled hackers out there, the vast majority aren’t masters of their craft. Just like in chess, the bulk of the crowd falls in the “novice” to “average” range. That’s where the bulk of the action happens, too. And that’s our point: if a novice chess player can learn just one simple opener (like The Queen’s Gambit), they easily take advantage of a less-skilled opponent.

In other words, hackers don’t have to be masters of their craft—in fact, most of them aren’t. Just like in chess, attacking you is less about what they know and more about what you don’t. And that’s especially important when considering the rise in cybersecurity over recent years.

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The Fischer Boom

In America, chess experienced an exponential surge in popularity in the late 60s and early 70s, when Bobby Fischer’s rise to prominence led to what is now known as the “Fischer Boom.”

Suddenly more people than ever were taking up the game. While this eventually led to a larger population of skilled players (those with a natural aptitude and sufficient work ethic), it also led to an unprecedented flood of novice and below-average players eager to play the game. It was easy to catch people with simple openers like The Queen’s Gambit.

The "Phisher Boom"

Similarly, there has been an exponential surge in cyberattacks worldwide in recent years, but this is more than a mechanism of popular culture: it is directly related to opportunity, incentive, and—perhaps most significantly—accessibility. Thanks to innovative and easy-to-use technology readily available to anyone with bad intentions and a VPN, the barrier of entry to becoming a “hacker” is lower than ever before. And unlike the “Fischer Boom,” you don’t get to choose whether to participate.

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We’re all players in this game, whether we like it or not.

Remember, an opening is just the beginning of a larger game. There are no foolproof defenses for any single opening attack. It’s essential to understand the ideas behind the moves, develop your pieces efficiently, and make good positional choices throughout the game. Studying chess principles, tactics, and strategies will help you improve your overall game and handle various openings effectively, including the Queen’s Gambit.?

In short, cybercrime will continue to increase year over year as more and more “players” are incentivized to take up the “game.” In today’s cyber threat landscape, you have more to worry about than that mysterious, brilliant hacker lurking in a dark room. A novice threat actor with one good move can take you apart. They can do it in skinny jeans at a Starbucks—destroying everything you’ve worked so hard for as they sip a venti white mocha latte with a pump of hazelnut. (Is that a thing? That sounds like a Starbucks thing.)

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Prioritizing cybersecurity and cybersecurity awareness is more important than ever.

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Don’t let your organization become another statistic. Tier 3 Technology provides effective, around-the-clock cybersecurity solutions that give you peace of mind and allow you to focus on what matters: growing your business. Learn more at?www.gotier3.com.

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