Matthew Van Andel’s ordinary life unraveled when he accidentally downloaded a trojan horse that gave a hacker access to his entire computer. But the hacker didn’t just get Van Andel’s information. It also got his employer: Disney. Further Reading: -A Disney Worker Downloaded an AI Tool. It Led to a Hack That Ruined His Life. -How to Keep Hackers From Destroying Your Digital Life Further Listening: -Six Days of Chaos at MGM's Casinos -Hack Me If You Can Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: How did a simple download lead to a hack at Disney?
This is Dutch Van Andel. Up until last year, he lived a pretty ordinary life. He's a software engineering manager, married with two kids, and lives in the suburbs of Los Angeles. But last year, something happened that turned his ordinary life upside down. It started when Dutch downloaded a seemingly innocuous program onto his personal computer.
It was an AI software called Vision LLM, and it could generate images. He wanted something his sons could play with.
Like generate pictures of Easter buddies and Roblox people and, you know, stuff like that.
He didn't know it at the time, but the program had a malicious code in it, a code that gave a hacker access to Dutch's computer. And over a period of months, that hacker stole all of Dutch's personal information, like his bank accounts and passwords,
They're getting into things they shouldn't have because they've got my social security number, they've got my birth date, they've got my email address. You can just make a phone call and pretend to be me because you have this information.
It was a nightmare. And it wasn't just his personal life that was hacked. Through Dutch, the hacker also got inside his employer, Disney. Disney has apparently been hit by a cyber attack. The hacking group Noble says it leaked thousands of internal Disney messages. While Dutch's story is unusual, his life online wasn't. And what happened to him could happen to almost anyone.
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Chapter 2: What was the turning point in Dutch's digital nightmare?
These people, they may not be targeting you, but just because you work for somebody that they find interesting, they will destroy you to get at it.
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knudson. It's Monday, March 17th. Coming up on the show, what it feels like to be at the center of a major hack on one of the world's largest companies.
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That is one impressive mustache. Thank you. Dutch's mustache is long, straight, and points directly out to the sides.
Started with just curling the corners with some wax, and I wanted to make a loop. Uh-huh. But it turns out, every time it gets hot, my hair is stubborn, and that loop turns into a hoop. So I just started keeping it straight instead. Dutch is 43, and his real name is Matthew. I tend to go by Dutch because there's just too many Matts everywhere you go. Right. I was the Dutch Matt.
And then it just became Dutch. The Dutch? Are you Dutch? Yeah, yeah. It's, well, you know, family name, Van Andel. Grandparents were Dutch, so I'm like third generation, something like that.
The first sign that Dutch's life was about to be turned upside down happened last spring.
So in May, we have our credit cards stolen. We're racking up thousands of dollars in these fraudulent credit card charges on like all of our credit cards. And it's really bizarre and I can't figure out what exactly is going on.
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Chapter 3: How did Dutch discover the hack on his work computer?
Other weird things happened too. Like his computer slowed down to the point where he couldn't even use it. And then he got a suspicious login notification to his work account that he didn't recognize. But July is when he knew something was really up. That's when he got a message on Discord, a platform popular with gamers.
And there's this suspicious direct message. The person's like, Frank something something. And ordinarily, I just delete unsolicited direct messages from strangers. But this one was really long.
The thing that caught his attention was that the message included details from a conversation he'd had on his work Slack account. It was a chat about his lunch.
I think there is no way they should have this. There's no way they should have that Slack conversation.
Slack was Disney's internal messaging platform at the time, and it's supposed to be private. No one outside the company should have been able to see those messages.
The only way they have that Slack conversation is somehow my work computer is compromised. So immediately, I close the work computer.
Dutch came to the conclusion that he'd been hacked. He got in touch with Disney's information security team, or InfoSec. It responds to the company's IT emergencies.
And I say, hey... I got this thing, it sounds like an extortion message, and they have a thing in there from Slack that they should not have access to.
Dutch says InfoSec looked into it and said his work laptop looked fine and that it should check his personal computer. So Dutch ran an antivirus program.
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Chapter 4: What role did 1Password play in the security breach?
Vision LLM, that AI plugin Dutch had downloaded so that his kids could generate images of Easter bunnies and Roblox characters. That program had a hidden virus.
So I look it up. And I find this Reddit thread where somebody's like, this is malware, it steals all your passwords. If you downloaded this, change all of your passwords immediately, like right now, that somebody has your passwords. So I let InfoSec know, I'm like, you know, I think they maybe got in through my PC.
Dutch said that Disney's InfoSec agreed, and they told him that a hacker had also gotten into Disney's systems, and they were downloading massive amounts of data.
And that's where it starts setting in, like this panic. You know, I'm still not sure, like, how they had gotten to the Disney system. So, like, you know, we're trying to work through. It's like, well, how could they get past, like, the two-factor authentication?
Chapter 5: How did the hacker gain access to Disney's systems?
While Dutch was on the phone with InfoSec, he also had his email account open. And he noticed a spammy-looking message show up in his inbox. He deleted it. But then he got another one right away.
And this one is exactly the same as the Discord message. So they're definitely trying to get a hold of me, you know? And the timing is also weird. Like, it's like, why am I getting this now while I'm like here in my email?
Mm-hmm. Like, are they watching me somehow?
Yes. And I like kind of panic and I like hit the trash button. And then they send a third email saying, we saw what you did. Oh my God. That's where things start to get bad. You know they're watching you.
In that third email, the hacker also sent a threat. It said, quote, respond, do what we want, or end up on the net.
They're not just in Slack. They're in my email. That means they're probably in my Discord. And I'm thinking, how? How is this possible? It doesn't take long for me to figure out, maybe just a few seconds, they're in my 1Password. It is the only way.
1Password is a password manager. It's considered a way to protect your digital life, and it's often recommended by security experts as a way to make sure you don't get hacked. The hacker was able to get into Dutch's 1Password account because Dutch didn't have two-factor authentication turned on. That's those codes that get pushed to your phone to make sure it's really you.
getting access to his 1Password account was bad. Because not only did Dutch store all of his passwords there, he also stored personal information like birth certificates and social security numbers, information that Dutch had been accumulating for a decade. And not only that, Dutch also used 1Password for two-factor authentication codes, meaning that by accessing his 1Password account,
The hacker got Dutch's passwords and his two-factor codes. It was like they had the ultimate master key to Dutch's entire digital life.
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