What is hacking?
The act of finding and using network and system flaws to gain unauthorized access to those systems is known as computer hacking. Malicious hacking is not the norm. White hat hackers may work in cyber security or as software testers and engineers who look for flaws to patch. Black hat hackers work with nefarious motives. Nevertheless, there is a significant gray area occupied by political activists and hackers who engage in both capacities.
Every year, hacking costs businesses and customers trillions of dollars. By 2022, cyber assaults will cost a total of $6 trillion, up from the $2 trillion in damages reported in 2021, predicts CPO Magazine. The same aspects of the internet that we all use to our advantage also contribute significantly to the problem of cybercrime. Even the most inexperienced hacker may quickly and practically for free find all the tools they want online.
The hacking assault didn’t start right away. It took decades of labor by now-famous hackers to identify key flaws and expose the tactics that laid the groundwork for the internet and its libertarian free-for-all philosophy. The top ten most infamous hackers ever are listed below.
Kevin Mitnick
Kevin Mitnick, a key player in American hacking, began his professional life as a teenager. He was accused of stealing computer manuals from Pacific Bell in 1981. His hacking of the North American Defense Command (NORAD) in 1982 served as the basis for the 1983 movie War Games. He breached the network of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1989 and copied its software. This action established Mitnick’s reputation because DEC was a well-known computer maker at the time. Later, he was detained, found guilty, and imprisoned. He breached the voicemail systems of Pacific Bell while he was on restricted release.
Throughout the course of his hacking career, Mitnick never made use of the information and access he gained. It’s commonly accepted that he once took complete control of Pacific Bell’s network to demonstrate that it was possible. For the Pacific Bell incident, a warrant was issued for his arrest; nevertheless, Mitnick eluded capture and spent more than two years hiding. He was apprehended and was sentenced to jail on many charges of wire fraud and computer fraud.
Mitnick may fall into the both-hats grey area even if he finally chose the white hat. According to Wired, he established “Mitnick’s Absolute Zero Day Exploit Exchange” in 2014, which offers crucial software flaws that have not been fixed for sale to the highest bidder.
Anonymous
In an unknown thread on the 4chan message boards, Anonymous first appeared in 2003. The group lacks organization and has a hazy grasp of the idea of social justice. For instance, the organization started blocking the Church of Scientology’s websites in 2008 after taking issue with them, which had a bad effect on its Google search results and caused its fax machines to become overrun with all-black pictures. A group of “Anons” wearing the now-famous Guy Fawkes mask marched through Scientology temples all around the world in March 2008. Although the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have located some of the group’s more active members, according to The New Yorker, the lack of a true hierarchy makes it nearly hard to locate or disband Anonymous as a whole.
Adrian Lamo
Adrian Lamo, then 20 years old, altered a Reuters story in 2001 by adding a false quotation that was ascribed to then Attorney General John Ashcroft using an unsecured content management system at Yahoo. Lamo frequently breached computer systems before alerting the media and his victims. He occasionally assisted in the clean-up to increase their security. But as Wired notes, Lamo went too far in 2002 when he hacked The New York Times intranet, listed himself as an expert source, and started researching well-known public people. Because Lamo tended to travel the streets with little more than a bag and frequently had no set location, he acquired the nickname “The Homeless Hacker.”
Albert Gonzalez
Gonzalez, also known as “soupnazi,” started out as the “troubled pack leader of computer geeks” at his Miami high school, according to the New York Daily News. He subsequently started participating in the illegal online marketplace Shadowcrew.com, where he was regarded as one of its greatest hackers and moderators. Gonzalez was detained in New York at the age of 22 for stealing information from millions of card accounts in order to commit debit card fraud. He joined the Secret Service as an informant to avoid going to jail, which ultimately assisted in the indictment of other Shadowcrew members.
Gonzalez maintained his illegal activities while working as a paid informant. Gonzalez stole more than 180 million credit card accounts from businesses including OfficeMax, Dave and Buster’s, and Boston Market with the help of a number of accomplices. Gonzalez’s 2005 attack on US retailer TJX, according to The New York Times Magazine, was the first instance of a repeated credit data breach. This well-known hacker and his crew established back doors in multiple business networks using a straightforward SQL injection, and they stole an estimated $256 million from TJX alone. Gonzalez was victimized in a way that the federal prosecution before his sentence in 2015 described as “unparalleled.”
Matthew Bevan and Richard Pryce
In 1996, a group of British hackers led by Matthew Bevan and Richard Pryce broke into a number of military networks, including those at Griffiss Air Force Base, the Defense Information System Agency, and the Korean Atomic Research Institute (KARI). After dumping KARI research onto American military systems, Bevan (Kuji) and Pryce (Datastream Cowboy) have been charged with almost sparking a third world war. Bevan believes he was seeking evidence to support a UFO conspiracy idea, and the BBC has noted similarities between his case and that of Gary McKinnon. Bevan and Pryce showed that even military networks are susceptible, whether or not there is malicious intent.
Jeanson James Ancheta
Jeanson James Ancheta has no interest in disrupting networks to enact social justice or hacking systems to steal credit card information. Ancheta was more interested in the usage of bots, which are software-based robots that are capable of infecting and ultimately taking control of computer systems. In 2005, he was able to infiltrate more than 400,000 machines by using a number of sizable “botnets.” In addition to receiving payment to personally install bots or adware on particular computers, he allegedly rented these machines out to advertising businesses. This is according to Ars Technica. Ancheta received a 57-month jail term. This was the first instance of a hacker being imprisoned for using a botnet.
Michael Calce
Michael Calce, popularly known as “Mafiaboy,” a 15-year-old, learned how to hijack computer networks at universities in February 2000. He pooled their resources to overthrow Yahoo, the leading search engine at the time. By utilizing a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) assault to overwhelm business servers and bring down their websites, he also shut down Dell, eBay, CNN, and Amazon within a week. The biggest shock for supporters of the internet and investors in cybercrime came from Calce’s wake-up call. Was any online data truly safe if the largest websites in the world, valued at over $1 billion, could be so quickly shut down? It is hardly overstatement to claim that Calce’s attack made the creation of cyber crime laws an urgent government priority.
Kevin Poulsen
Under the identity Dark Dante, a 17-year-old Poulsen gained access to the Pentagon’s computer network ARPANET in 1983. Despite being swiftly apprehended, the authorities chose not to press charges against Poulsen, who was still a child at the time. Instead, he was given a warning and released.
Poulsen ignored this advice and carried on hacking. Poulsen broke into the papers of Ferdinand Marcos, the ousted president of the Philippines, in 1988 after hacking into a government computer. Poulsen fled into hiding after being apprehended by the authorities. Poulsen stayed busy while he was hiding out by hacking into government databases and leaking information. He allegedly hacked a radio station contest in 1990 to make sure he was the 102nd caller, winning a brand-new Porsche, a trip, and $20,000 in the process.
Poulsen was promptly detained and given a three-year computer use ban. Since then, he has switched to white hat hacking and journalism, writing for Wired, The Daily Beast, and his own site Threat Level on cyber security and web-related sociopolitical problems. Paulson also collaborated on a number of initiatives for social justice and information freedom with other top hackers. Perhaps most significantly, he collaborated with Jim Dolan and Adam Swartz to create SecureDrop, an open-source program that was first called DeadDrop. Poulsen eventually gave the Freedom of Press Foundation access to the platform, which allowed for safe contact between reporters and sources.
Jonathan James
Jonathan James hacked into multiple businesses using the moniker cOmrade. The New York Times claims that James’ intrusion into the systems of the US Department of Defense is what truly caught people’s attention. The fact that James was just 15 at the time was even more astounding. In an interview with PC Mag, James acknowledged that the book The Cuckoo’s Egg, which describes the 1980s search for a computer hacker, served as a source of inspiration. Through hacking, he gained access to over 3,000 messages from government workers as well as usernames, passwords, and other private information.
James was arrested in 2000, given a six-month house detention term, and prohibited from using computers for leisure. He did, however, spend six months in jail due to a probation breach. Jonathan James was the earliest person to be found guilty of breaking the legislation against cybercrime. A retail shop called TJX had a cyberattack in 2007 that exposed the private information of several customers. Despite the absence of proof, officials believe James could have been complicit.
James committed suicide with a pistol in 2008. The Daily Mail said that he wrote in his suicide note, “I have no trust in the ‘justice’ system. Maybe my letter and what I did today will convey a clearer message to the public. In either case, I’ve lost control of the circumstance, and this is the only way I know how to reclaim it.
ASTRA
In contrast to the other hackers on this list, this one has never been named in the media. The Daily Mail claims that some information concerning ASTRA has, however, been made public. Specifically, he was identified as a 58-year-old Greek mathematician when he was detained by police in 2008. He allegedly spent close to five years hacking the Dassault Group. He stole state-of-the-art software and data related to weapons technology during that period and sold it to 250 people worldwide. His hacking caused $360 million in losses for the Dassault Group. Nobody is sure why he has never disclosed his full identify, although the term “ASTRA” is a Sanskrit word meaning “sword”
Conclusion
Some of these elite hackers sought to improve the world, while others sought to disprove UFO ideas. Others wished for fame, while others desired money. Each of these individuals made a significant contribution to the development of the internet and cyber security.