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Did you know that Steve Jobs
and Mark Zuckerberg were black hat hackers? Here we bring to you 11
most notorious black hat hackers ever!
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Monday, October 07, 2013:
Hacking is undoubtedly one of
the most adventurous, enticing and mysterious parts of the tech world
and we thought it could be even more fun to know and learn about the top
tier notorious black hat hackers and the legendary hacks that earned
them such a title. So we bring to you the top 11 black hat hackers ever!
If
you are wondering what black hat is, then a black hat hacker is a
computing slang for a person who is engaged in illegal or malicious
hacking. And similarly a white hat hacker is someone who intends to
improve internet security.
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11. Kevin Mitnick
Kevin David Mitnick
(born on August 6, 1963) is an American computer security consultant,
author, and hacker. In the late 20th century, he was convicted of
various computer- and communications-related crimes. At the time of his
arrest, he was the most-wanted computer criminal in the United States.
Mitnick gained unauthorized access to his first computer network in
1979, at 16, when a friend gave him the phone number for the Ark, the
computer system Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) used for developing
their RSTS/E operating system software. He broke into DEC’s computer
network and copied their software, a crime he was charged with and
convicted of in 1988.
According to the U.S. Department of
Justice, Mitnick gained unauthorized access to dozens of computer
networks while he was a fugitive. He used cloned cellular phones to hide
his location and, among other things, copied valuable proprietary
software from some of the country’s largest cellular telephone and
computer companies. Mitnick also intercepted and stole computer
passwords, altered computer networks, and broke into and read private
e-mail.
10. Kevin Poulsen a.k.a. Dark Dante
The
notorious 80s black hat hacker, Kevin Poulsen, gained recognition for
his hacking of the telephone lines for LA radio station KIIS-FM,
securing himself a place as the 102nd caller and winning a brand new
Porsche 944, among other prizes. Law enforcement dubbed Poulsen the
“Hannibal Lecter of computer crime.” Poulsen went underground as a
fugitive when the FBI began its search for him, but in 1991, he was
finally captured.
He pleaded guilty to seven counts of mail, wire
and computer fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and for
obtaining information on covert businesses run by the FBI. Kevin Poulsen
was sentenced to 51 months in prison (4 years and 3 months), which was
the longest sentence ever given for hacking at the time. However, since
serving time, Poulsen has worked as a journalist and is now a senior
editor for Wired News. Poulsen’s most note-worthy article details his
work on identifying 744 sex offenders with MySpace profiles.
9. Albert Gonzalez
Cyber-criminal
Albert Gonzalez has been accused of masterminding the biggest ATM and
credit card theft in history; from 2005 to 2007, he and his cybergroup
had allegedly sold more than 170 million card and ATM numbers.
Gonzalez’s team used SQL injection techniques to create malware
backdoors on several corporate systems in order to launch
packet-sniffing (specifically, ARP Spoofing) attacks, allowing him to
steal computer data from internal corporate networks. When he was
arrested, authorities seized $1.6 million in cash including $1.1 million
found in plastic bags placed in a three-foot drum which had been buried
in his parents’ backyard. In 2010, Gonzalez was sentenced to 20 years
in federal prison.
8. Vladimir Levin
It’s almost
like the opening of a James Bond movie: in 1994, while working from his
laptop from his Russian apartment in St. Petersburg, Vladimir Levin
transferred $10 million from the accounts of Citibank clients to his own
accounts around the world.
However, Levin’s career as a hacker
was only short lived, with a capture, imprisonment and recovery of all
but $400,000 of the original $10 million. During Levin’s 1997 trial in
the United States, he was said to have coordinated the first ever
internet bank raid. The truth is Levin’s ability to transfer Citibank
client funds to his own accounts was possible through stolen account
numbers and PINs. Levin’s scam was a simple interception of clients’
calls while recording the punched in account numbers.
7. Robert Tappan Morris
On
November 2, 1988, Robert Morris released a worm that took down
one-tenth of the Internet, crippling 6,000 plus computer systems. It
didn’t take long for the police to track him down. Morris made the fault
of chatting about his worm for months before its release on the
Internet. Morris claimed it was just a stunt, and added that he truly
regretted causing $15 million worth of damage: the estimated amount of
carnage his worm left behind.
Morris was one of the first to be
tried and convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act but only had
community service and a fine as his penalty. The defense for such a
light sentence was that Morris’ worm didn’t destroy the actual contents
of affected computers. Morris now works in the department of Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT).
6. Michael Calce a.k.a. MafiaBoy
In
February of 2000, Michael Calce launched a series of widely known
denial-of-service attacks against large commercial websites, including
Yahoo!, Amazon.com, Dell, eBay, and CNN. He hacked Yahoo! when it was
still the web’s leading search engine and caused it to shutdown for
about an hour. Like many hackers, Calce exploited websites primarily for
pride and establishing dominance for himself and his cybergroup, TNT.
In 2001, the Montreal Youth Court sentenced Calce to eight months of
open custody, one year of probation, restricted use of the Internet, and
a minimal fine.
5. David Smith
Smith’s fame can be
credited to the infamous e-mail virus, Melissa that he gave birth to.
Smith claims that the Melissa virus was never intended to cause harm,
but its simple means of propagation (each infected computer sent out
multiple infected emails) overloaded computer systems and servers around
the world. Smith’s virus takes an unusual turn in that it was
originally hidden in a file that contained passwords to 80 well-known
pornography websites. The name Melissa was derived from a lap dancer
Smith met while on a trip in Florida. Even though over 60,000 email
viruses have been discovered, Smith is the only person to go to federal
prison in the United States for sending one.
4. Adrian Lamo
Nicknamed
“the homeless hacker,” Adrian Lamo used coffee shops, libraries and
internet cafés as his locations for hacking. Apart from being the
homeless hacker, Lamo is widely-known for breaking into a series of
high-profile computer networks, which include The New York Times,
Microsoft, Yahoo!, and MCI WorldCom. In 2002, he added his name to the
The New York Times’ internal database of expert sources and utilized
LexisNexis account to conduct research on high-profile subjects. The
Times filed a complaint, and a warrant for Lamo’s arrest was issued,
followed by a 15-month investigation by federal prosecutors in New York.
After
several days in hiding, he finally surrendered to the US Marshals, and
then to the FBI. Lamo was ordered to pay approximately $65,000 in
damages and was sentenced to six months house arrest at his parents’
home, with an additional two years of probation. In June 2010, Lamo
disclosed the name of Bradley Manning to U.S. Army authorities as the
source of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike video leak to Wikileaks.
Lamo is presently working as a threat analyst and donates his time and
skills to a Sacramento-based nonprofit organization.
3. George Hotz
The
name of the acclaimed jailbreak artist, George Hotz, will forever be
associated with the April 2011 PlayStation breach. Being one of the
first hackers ever to jailbreak the Sony PlayStation 3, Hotz found
himself in the midst of a very relentless, public and messy court battle
with Sony – perhaps worsened by Hotz’s public release of his jail
breaking methods. In a stated retaliation to Sony’s gap of the unstated
rules of jail breaking – never prosecute – the hacker group Anonymous
attacked Sony in what would be the dubbed as the most costly security
break of all time to date.
Hackers broke into the PlayStation
Network and stole personal information of some 77 million users.
However, Hotz denied any responsibility for the attack, and added
“Running homebrew and exploring security on your devices is cool;
hacking into someone else’s server and stealing databases of user info.
is not cool.”
2. Jonathan James a.k.a. c0mrade
Jonathan
James, 16-year-old black hat hacker, became the first juvenile
imprisoned for cybercrime in the United States. James gained his
notoriety by implementing a series of successful intrusions into various
systems. At an amazingly young age of 15, James specialized in hacking
high-profile government systems such as NASA and the Department of
Defense. He was reported to have stolen software worth over $1.7
million. He also hacked into the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and
intercepted over 3,000 highly secretive messages passing to and from the
DTRA employees, while collecting many usernames and passwords.
On
May 18, 2008, at the age of 25, James committed suicide using a gun.
The words in his suicide note provide some insight into this obviously
brilliant but troubled youth who thought he would be a scapegoat and
blamed for cyber crimes he did not commit: “I have no faith in the
‘justice’ system. Perhaps my actions today, and this letter, will send a
stronger message to the public. Either way, I have lost control over
this situation, and this is my only way to regain control.”
1. Gary McKinnon
In
2002, an exceptionally odd message appeared on a US Army computer
screen: “Your security system is crap,” it read. “I am Solo. I will
continue to disrupt at the highest levels.” It was later identified as
the work of Scottish systems administrator, Gary McKinnon.
McKinnon
suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, which is the least severe form of
autism. The symptoms of Asperger’s syndrome certainly match Gary’s
actions: that is, highly intelligent with an exceptional understanding
of complex systems. Though sufferers often have difficulty reading
social cues and acknowledging the impact of their often-obsessive
behavior, they tend to be geniuses in one particular subject. For Gary,
it was computers.
Gary has been accused of executing the largest
ever hack of United States government computer networks — including
Army, Air Force, Navy and NASA systems. The court had recommended that
McKinnon be apprehended to the United States to face charges of
illegally accessing 97 computers, causing a total of $700,000 in damage.
Even more interesting are McKinnon’s motives for the large scale
hackings, which he claims were in search of information on UFOs. He
believed the US government was hiding such information in its military
computers.
Courtesy: listverse |
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