5 Most Famous Hackers of all Time

5 Most Famous Hackers of all Time

“No matter how many times your amazing, absolutely brilliant work is rejected by the client, for whatever dopey, arbitrary reason, there is often another amazing, absolutely brilliant solution possible. Sometimes it’s even better.”

– Bob Gill

An usual person, when he hears the word hacker, immediately thinks of a nerdy guy with glasses trying to hack into computers to mess around, and wreak havoc. They couldn’t be more far from the truth. There are actually two types of hackers: the white hat hackers and the black hat hackers.

The first type actually help patch up system flaws by hacking into the designated servers, or computers. The black hat hackers are those who tend to cause panic – they hack for personal information, money, or just to get an adrenaline rush from hacking the Pentagon on a Sunday morning. We have compiled a list of the 5 most famous hackers that have ruined other peoples livelihood.

1. Hector Xavier Monsegur

5-Most-Famous-Hackers of-all-Time-1

Image Source

Also known on the internet as Sabu. He is a co-founder of the hacking group called LulzSec, or Lulz Security – they are responsible for countless high profile attacks like stealing all the account information from Sony Pictures users back in 2011. If that wasn’t enough for you, they also took CIA’s website down.

LulzSec was composed of 6 members, currently 4 of them are in custody, and some are facing jail time. Sabu, the first one to be taken down, helped the FBI track them down as an informant. Sabu was arrested on June 7th 2011, and has helped the US government proactively since then.

With his help, the FBI managed to catch their number one cyber-criminal target. Sabu served only 7 months of jail, and since the May 27th 2014, he is on a one year parole because of his fully cooperation with the FBI.

2. Kevin Mitnick

5-Most-Famous-Hackers of-all-Time-2

Image Source

Kevin David Mitnick was born on August 6th 1963, and he has been hacking since he was 15 years old, before using computers became mainstream. His first hack was to get free buss passes so he can ride as long as he can. His first computer hack put him in jail for 12 months, with a 3 year period of parole time, for hacking Digital Equipment Corporation’s computer systems.

He didn’t abide the parole period, and he hacked once again, but this time into Pacific Bell’s voice mail computers. He avoided being arrested for 2 years and a half, but eventually, he was caught and sentenced to 5 years in prison. You would have been thinking that there is no way in hell a future in security for this guys.

Well, you are wrong. He now runs the computer security firm – Mitnick Security Consulting. Well, it does kind of make sense. I will surely want a high profile hacker be in charge of my security system and explaining ( and hopefully avoiding) all the flaws.

3. Gary McKinnon

5-Most-Famous-Hackers of-all-Time-3

Image Source

Gary McKinnon also known as Solo, is a Scottish hacker, who hacked into the USA military department. He managed to successfully halt ammunitions supply to the US Navy’s Atlantic Fleet. Solo also did some incredible damage to the US military infrastructure – he hacked into more than 97 US military and NASA computers making them useless for 24 hours, just a few months after the tragedy of 9/11.

He also posted messages like this one, on their servers “US foreign policy is akin to Government-sponsored terrorism these days … It was not a mistake that there was a huge security stand down on September 11 last year … I am SOLO. I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels …”.

Solo is suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome, and when he was eventually caught, he told them that he was only looking for proof on UFOs, anti-gravity technology and free energy suppression. He never did face any jail time on US territory, and after 10 years of going back and forth, the prosecutors decided to call it quits.

4. Ehud Tenenbaum

5-Most-Famous-Hackers of-all-Time-4

Image Source

The Analyzer has one of the most incredible stories of our generation – and I’m surprised there isn’t a movie showcasing his life. When he was 19 years old, the Israeli boy that was going under the name of “ The Analyzer”, hacked into NASA, the US and Israeli military.

He, with his group of hackers, managed to plant backdoors and successfully steal vital information. He was caught and sentenced in 2001, after several branches of the US government conveyed that this was a national threat that must be stopped – they were thinking that the hacking was made by the Iraqi government, they didn’t expect a 19 year old man to be at the head of the attack. He only served 8 months of his 18 months prison sentence.

In 2008 he was yet again arrested for stealing from financial institutions. He managed to steal 10 million dollars from Canadian Banks. He pleaded guilty, and accepted a plea bargain to help and cooperate in the investigation.

5. Jonathan James

5-Most-Famous-Hackers of-all-Time-5

Jonathan’s story is a sad one. Jonathan Joseph James was an American hacker, born on December 12th 1983, and died on May 18th 2008, after a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was the first juvenile to be incarcerated for cybercrime in the US. His first offense was at 15 years old, and 16 years old when he was sentenced to jail.

He managed to put his hands on precise software that was designated of controlling critical life sustaining elements on the International Space Station. With help of backdoors and a series of intrusions into various systems, he stole thesource code. NASA, on the moment of finding out the existence of the intrusion, immediately shut down its computers for three weeks, causing damages of 41,000$.

They couldn’t allow such risk to be exposed, it was crucial to the stations and its inhabitants well being – “the software supported the International Space Station’s physical environment, including control of the temperature and humidity within the living space.”

Do you harbor any hacking secrets? Any stories of famous hackers that we missed? We would love to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to post in the comments section below.

About

Elena Simionescu handles PR for Pixel77 and Inky Deals. She takes marketing and social media pretty seriously and in her free time, she watches a lot of movies. Like a lot, a lot. Get in touch with her on Twitter and Google+.

1 Comment on “5 Most Famous Hackers of all Time

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *