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Top 10 Best Hackers The World Has Ever Known
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When it comes to hacking, black hat perpetrators are the cyber criminals that manipulate computer networks or phone lines with a malicious intent. Whether it be monetary gains, boosting of self image, or tarnishing the reputation of a despised corporation, these ghostly convicts can be just as dangerous to society as mass murderers. Million-dollar bank accounts could find themselves empty, identities can be stolen and taken advantage of, and prestigious businesses have the potential to lose an immense amount of money, customers, and reliability because of black hat hackers. The names displayed in this list have created calamity at one point in time using their competence in the abstruse field of black hat hacking
10.Markus Hess
In the 1980s, Markus Hess was hired by the Soviets, particularly the KGB, to penetrate United States military computer networks to retrieve confidential material. Using the German Datex-P network, Hess was able to infiltrate around 400 U.S. military machines, including the OPTIMIS Database at the Pentagon. Systems administrator, Clifford Stoll, was the first to disclose Hess’ presence in the networks and emerged as the primary catalyst behind the prosecution of the German cyber terrorist. Hess was found guilty of espionage and was sentenced to just one to three years in jail, but was released early on probation.
9.Michael Calce
Canadian Michael Calce, also referred to as “Mafiaboy,” was a 15-year-old mastermind who is known for hacking into some of the most celebrated and reputable websites that are on the internet today. In 2000, Calce induced havoc around the US when he incapacitated e-giants such as Amazon, Yahoo!, E*Trade, CNN, Dell, and eBay for hours at a time. He used a technique called denial-of-service attacks, meaning he had countless requests sent to each website and forcing their servers to overrun. Being a teenager, his intentions weren’t calamitous, but his curiosity led him down a dangerous path and had him handcuffed while being involved in a sleepover at a friends house. While no monetary benefits were claimed, Calce just wanted to demonstrate his power and immaculate computer skills, and he did so in extravegant fashion. He was determined guilty for 56 counts of hacking-related crimes and was sentenced to eight months of open custody followed by a year of probation.
8.Robert Morris
Robert Morris went down in history as the first hacker to release a worm
virus over the internet and to be the first cybercriminal to be
prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Supposedly
intending to see how capacious the internet was at the time, Morris’
worm ultimately infected over 6,000 computers, including ones owned by
the military and various universities across the country. Because the
virus was coded incorrectlty, the rate at which it duplicated itself was
accelerated and became even more harmful. When he was finally judged
guilty, Morris was lucky enough to get off with just a $10,500 fine,
three years of probation, and 400 hours of community service.
Considering the estimation of his damages were as high as $10 million,
these disciplinary actions seem inconsiderable. After this debacle was
handled, Robert Morris became a computer science professor at MIT, as
well as owning his own website that demonstrates a portion of his
research and programming work.
7.Albert Gonzalez
Albert Gonzalez was involved in an
exceedingly interesting cyber heist that commenced from the moment he
was caught stealing just hundreds of dollars from a local ATM dressed as
a woman. Titled as a hacking mastermind on a website called
ShadowCrew.com, which fundamentally served as a forum for cyber
criminals like Gonzalez to swap embezzled credit card information to
each other and discuss valuable tips and information on companies that
possessed weak network security, Gonzalez was caught “cashing out” in
upper Manhattan. Government officials recognized this 22-year-olds
knowledge pertaining to hacking, fraud, and computers, so they hired him
to be a paid informant for the United States Secret Service field in
Miami.
The agency respectfully assumed that
Gonzalez had made a positive life change after it was evident he was
accomplished and accepting of his new engagement, but there was nothing
further from reality. While helping the US government, an aggregation of
transcendant hackers, with Gonzalez bearing a prominent role, recovered
around 180 million bank card numbers from entities such as Dave &
Buster’s, TJ Maxx, Forever 21, Barnes & Noble, and other
distinguished organizations. Gonzalez would later receive concurrent
20-year prison sentences, the longest amount of time an American
computer hacker had ever received in history.
6.Kevin Poulsen
Kevin Poulsen can be considered as one
of the most well-rounded hackers in terms of being competent in various
networking fields, but he was primarily known for his extraordinary
telephone line hacking skills. He started his cybercrime career when he
was at the young age of 17 when he used a basic computer to maneuver his
way into the United States Department of Defense’s version of the
internet. Instead of being convicted of his crime, his abilities were
taken advantage of as a computer programmer at Sun Microsystems and SRI,
as well as serving as a Pentagon computer security consultant. That’s
where the mistake was made.
Because he wasn’t prosecuted, Poulsen
hacked into FBI networks and revealed wiretaps that were placed on
potential criminals. While on the run, Poulsen continued to demonstrate
his gift and tapped into radio station phone lines, allowing him to
become the winning caller and cash in two new Porsches, two Hawaiian
vacations, and a total of $20,000. When he was finally retained after 17
months of being a fugitive, he was charged for money laundering and
wire fraud, given five years in prison without bail, and was prohibited
to touch a computer for three years.
5.Adrian Lamo
Adrian Lamo is widely considered to be “the most effective hacker of the 21st
century.” Given his benevolent hacking procedure, Lamo doesn’t fit the
cyber-terrorist title that the majority of guys on this list are
attributed to. It is said that he used Internet connections at local
Kinkos or coffee shops to hack into company security systems, and would
then inform the business of their security flaws. The list of computer
networks that he hacked into was an impressive collection of
non-governmental entities like Microsoft, Yahoo!, Citigroup, Bank of
America, Cingular, and The New York Times.
What made Lamo special was that he was
never disclosed when displaying his brilliance, and he never used his
hacking knowledge to recover funds that were not his or locate
confidential information. When he discovered a flaw in a company’s
network, he confronted their executives and offered to fix their
blemishes for free. The only catch was that the business then had to
publicly announce the incident, giving Lamo the name and credit that he
thought he deserved. “The homeless hacker” now serves as a threat
analyst after all these years helping businesses correct their network
faults.
4.Vladimir Levin
Levin is the stereotypical hacker, as he used his skills to gain access
to a list of Citibank user codes and passwords. The majority of
cybercriminals use hacking as a means of exemplifying their power and
intellect to the public, but Vladimir was only in it for the money. He
was the head of a Russian group that intended to go down in history as
being part of the first international bank robbery over a wired network.
In total, Levin used bank and credit card information to wire transfer
over $10 million to his group’s accounts in several countries, with $3.5
of that coming from Citibank accounts. He was eventually caught and
sent to prison for three years, while having to repay Citibank nearly
$250,000 in unrecovered funds.
3.Gary McKinnon
Gary McKinnon picked the wrong time to tinker with national networks and confidential files when he chose to partake in one of the largest military hacks in history. Ensuing the oppressive terror attacks on the Twin Towers in September, McKinnon cracked and exposed security failings in the United States military networks. In the cyber attack, 97 NASA, Department of Defense, and military computers were infiltrated over an interval of a year. Allegedly only attempting to accumulate confidential information regarding UFO existence and the presence of free energy suppression, McKinnon found himself deleting substantial files from the US Army’s Military District of Washington’s computer network for a full day, exterminating US Navy Weapon logs, and crashing 300 computers that belonged to the national naval base.
2.Jonathan James
As a 15-year-old kid, Jonathan James was
enjoying the thrill of hacking and participating in activities that no
other kid his age had the mental capacity of even thinking about doing.
Jonathan didn’t waste any time and tested his limitations early, as he
hacked into impressively large government organizations like NASA and an
agency of the Department of the Defense, more specifically the Defense
Threat Reduction Agency.
By the time he was imprisoned at the age
of 16, making him the first juvenile to be jailed for hacking, Jonathan
was reported to have stolen over $1.7 million in computer software from
high-profile entities. At the age of 25, this brilliant but troubled
young man had intentionally ended his own life because he was being
accused of cyber crimes that he didn’t commit . He made it a point in
his suicide note to state how he hoped his actions sent a meaningful
message to society.
1.Kevin Mitnick
Kevin Mitnick was highly touted as “the
most wanted computer criminal in United States history,” as he went from
being a simplistic phone phreaker into a full-out cyber crime
nightmare. At the young age of 12, Mitnick learned of his special
abilities and took advantage of a local McDonald’s, hacking into their
drive-through ordering system and bewildering customers and employees of
the company. He would sit across the street from the restaurant while
he was in full possession of the drive-through speaker and entertain
himself for hours on end, whether it be by telling customers their
orders were free or yelling at flustered employees.
Starting in the 1970s, Mitnick
penetrated some of the most top-notch security systems in the nation,
including corporations like Motorola, Netcom, Nokia, Sun Microsystems,
and countless other unfortunate victims. A 2-year public manhunt was in
full-effect after he was deemed accountable for copying high-end
software from the most prestigious phone companies in the country,
intercepting computer passwords, hacking computer networks, and gaining
access to confidential material. When he was arrested in 1995, Mitnick
was found with several pieces false identifications, cloned cellphones,
and was sentenced to 46 months in prison (plus 22 more for violating
terms on a previous sentence). After serving five years in jail, Mitnick
currently heads his own security consulting company, Mitnick Security
Consulting LLC.