After completing his prison sentence, Hiếu PC (Ngô Minh Hiếu) has returned to Vietnam after a long time “adrift” abroad. Upon his return, he joined the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) of Vietnam. Previously, he had also written a lengthy guide outlining advice on how to avoid becoming a victim of information and identity theft.
Although he has “turned his life around” and become a cybersecurity expert in Vietnam, Hiếu PC still carries the weight of his past mistakes, particularly his criminal conviction in the technology sector in the United States when he was 25.
Specifically, in a conversation with host Dustin Phúc Nguyễn on the show Dustin On The Go, Hiếu PC had a “deep” talk with the host as well as an open discussion with the audience about his former life.
From 2008 to 2009, Ngô Minh Hiếu (Hiếu PC) lived in New Zealand, where he was an administrator of several hacker forums on the dark web. During his studies, he discovered vulnerabilities in his school’s network and used similar exploits to attack other websites, stealing users’ payment card data. As a result, he earned a substantial amount of money.
However, Hiếu also confessed that it was a tiring time, having to lie to everyone around him about his well-off family, claiming his parents owned real estate and a restaurant system in the city. He had to prepare a “script” beforehand to talk to people.
It wasn’t until he was discovered in the case of stealing the social security numbers of 200 million Americans that his friends realized the truth. Although he received a 40-year prison sentence, due to good behavior and efforts to turn his life around, he was granted clemency and served only 7 years, during which he received training in criminal investigation skills.
This is the content of his life story that a producer wants to acquire for a film adaptation. Hiếu PC revealed that both parties are in negotiation. In addition, he affirmed that the work of hackers in films and reality only aligns about 60%, and in reality, it is much more “headache” than portrayed.
Hiếu PC’s real name is Ngô Minh Hiếu, and he is well-known in the hacker and security community under the alias hieupc. Born in 1989, he became familiar with computers and the internet at a very young age. If adapted into a film, the story of Hiếu PC’s life will undoubtedly leave fans eagerly anticipating its release.