AT&T says Mitnick is too hot for them

It sucks being a computer security guy at the best of times but it’s got to be doubly so if you are someone of Kevin Mitnick’s stature especially when not even your webhost or cellphone provider want anything to do with you. Granted one can get use to having one’s website being attacked on a regular basis or having one’s cellphone information show up in all different corners of the web but it seems the people providing those services can get tired of all of the attention.

For Mitnick everything it seems has come to a head in the past month as both his longtime webhost, HostedHere.net, and AT&T, his cell phone provider, has told him to take his business elsewhere. While the walking human honeypot suggests that companies need to take responsibility for a security system that still leaves ways into the networks the companies involved are just as happy to show him the door.

“Kevin is a high-profile target,” said David Wykofka, IT director at HostedHere. “When vulnerabilities come out in third-party vendor software, he is one of the first targets on their list. This is just one of the perils of being Kevin Mitnick. If you’re Barack Obama, you don’t get webhosting at GoDaddy.”

Source: The Register :: Besieged by attacks, AT&T dumps celebrity hacker

Okay I get that companies have every right to pick who they might want as their ideal suckers customers but isn’t just tossing someone like Kevin Mitnick to the curb like throwing the baby out with the bath water? After all what better way to have your systems constantly tested for free (you ever seen the prices that security pros charge for intrusion assessment?) than to have someone like Mitnick as a customer. Not to mention the free PR value of being able to say your network is secure enough to protect someone like Kevin.

This is just short-sighted and dumb.