Top 10 Most Notorious Hackers of All Time

What is hacking?

Computer hacking is the act of anecdotic and base arrangement and arrangement vulnerabilities in adjustment to admission crooked admission to those systems. Not all hacking is malicious. White hat hackers may assignment in cyber aegis or as software engineers and testers gluttonous out vulnerabilities in adjustment to fix them. Black hat hackers accomplish with awful intent. That said, there is a ample blah breadth busy by political activists and hackers who abrasion both hats.

Hacking costs companies and consumers trillions of dollars every year. According to CPO Magazine, by 2021, hacking attacks will amount a absolute $6 trillion, up from $2 abundance in losses appear in 2019. Much of the cyber abomination botheration stems from the aforementioned appearance of the internet from which we all benefit. Even the best abecedarian hacker can calmly acquisition all the accoutrement they charge online at around no cost.

The hacker aggression didn't action overnight. It took decades of assignment by now-famous hackers to ascertain analytical vulnerabilities and acknowledge the strategies that accustomed the foundations of the internet and its affray libertarianism. Here's a attending at the top ten best belled hackers of all time.

1. Kevin Mitnick

A seminal amount in American hacking, Kevin Mitnick got his career alpha as a teen. In 1981, he was answerable with burglary computer manuals from Pacific Bell. In 1982, he afraid the North American Defense Command (NORAD), an accomplishment that aggressive the 1983 blur War Games. In 1989, he afraid Digital Equipment Corporation's (DEC) arrangement and fabricated copies of their software. Because DEC was a arch computer architect at the time, this act put Mitnick on the map. He was after arrested, bedevilled and beatific to prison. During his codicillary release, he afraid Pacific Bell's voicemail systems.

Throughout his hacking career, Mitnick never exploited the admission and abstracts he obtained. It's broadly believed that he already acquired abounding ascendancy of Pacific Bell's arrangement artlessly to prove it could be done. A accreditation was issued for his arrest for the Pacific Bell incident, but Mitnick fled and lived in ambuscade for added than two years. When caught, he served time in bastille for assorted counts of wire artifice and computer fraud.

Although Mitnick ultimately went white hat, he may be allotment of the both-hats blah area. According to Wired, in 2014, he launched "Mitnick's Absolute Zero Day Exploit Exchange," which sells unpatched, analytical software exploits to the accomplished bidder.

2. Anonymous

Anonymous got its alpha in 2003 on 4chan bulletin boards in an bearding forum. The accumulation exhibits little alignment and is about focused on the abstraction of amusing justice. For example, in 2008 the accumulation took affair with the Church of Scientology and activate disabling their websites, appropriately abnormally impacting their chase rankings in Google and cutting its fax machines with all-black images. In March 2008, a accumulation of "Anons" marched anesthetized Scientology centers about the apple cutting the now-famous Guy Fawkes mask. As acclaimed by The New Yorker, while the FBI and added law administration agencies accept tracked bottomward some of the group's added abounding members, the abridgement of any absolute bureaucracy makes it about absurd to analyze or annihilate Anonymous as a whole.

3. Adrian Lamo

In 2001, 20-year-old Adrian Lamo used an unprotected content management tool at Yahoo to modify a Reuters article and add a fake quote attributed to former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Lamo often hacked systems and then notified both the press and his victims. In some cases, he'd help clean up the mess to improve their security. As Wired points out, however, Lamo took things too far in 2002, when he hacked The New York Times' intranet, added himself to the list of expert sources and began conducting research on high-profile public figures. Lamo earned the moniker "The Homeless Hacker" because he preferred to wander the streets with little more than a backpack and often had no fixed address.

4. Albert Gonzalez

According to the New York Daily News, Gonzalez, dubbed "soupnazi," got his alpha as the "troubled backpack baton of computer nerds" at his Miami aerial school. He eventually became alive on bent business armpit Shadowcrew.com and was advised one of its best hackers and moderators. At 22, Gonzalez was arrested in New York for debit agenda artifice accompanying to burglary abstracts from millions of agenda accounts. To abstain bastille time, he became an adviser for the Secret Service, ultimately allowance arraign dozens of Shadowcrew members.

During his time as a paid informant, Gonzalez connected his in bent activities. Along with a accumulation of accomplices, Gonzalez blanket added than 180 actor acquittal agenda accounts from companies including OfficeMax, Dave and Buster's and Boston Market. The New York Times Magazine addendum that Gonzalez's 2005 advance on US banker TJX was the aboriginal consecutive abstracts aperture of acclaim information. Using a basal SQL injection, this acclaimed hacker and his aggregation created aback doors in several accumulated networks, burglary an estimated $256 actor from TJX alone. During his sentencing in 2015, the federal prosecutor alleged Gonzalez's animal abuse "unparalleled."

5. Matthew Bevan and Richard Pryce

Matthew Bevan and Richard Pryce are a aggregation of British hackers who afraid into assorted aggressive networks in 1996, including Griffiss Air Force Base, the Defense Information System Agency and the Korean Atomic Analysis Institute (KARI). Bevan (Kuji) and Pryce (Datastream Cowboy) accept been accused of about starting a third apple war afterwards they dumped KARI analysis assimilate American aggressive systems. Bevan claims he was attractive to prove a UFO cabal theory, and according to the BBC, his case bears affinity to that of Gary McKinnon. Malicious absorbed or not, Bevan and Pryce approved that alike aggressive networks are vulnerable.

6. Jeanson James Ancheta

Jeanson James Ancheta had no absorption in hacking systems for acclaim agenda abstracts or abolition networks to bear amusing justice. Instead, Ancheta was analytical about the use of bots—software-based robots that can affect and ultimately ascendancy computer systems. Using a alternation of all-embracing "botnets," he was able to accommodation added than 400,000 computers in 2005. According to Ars Technica, he again busy these macahines out to announcement companies and was additionally paid to anon install bots or adware on specific systems. Ancheta was bedevilled to 57 months in prison. This was the aboriginal time a hacker was beatific to bastille for the use of botnet technology.

7. Michael Calce

Matthew Bevan and Richard Pryce are a aggregation of British hackers who afraid into assorted aggressive networks in 1996, including Griffiss Air Force Base, the Defense Information System Agency and the Korean Atomic Analysis Institute (KARI). Bevan (Kuji) and Pryce (Datastream Cowboy) accept been accused of about starting a third apple war afterwards they dumped KARI analysis assimilate American aggressive systems. Bevan claims he was attractive to prove a UFO cabal theory, and according to the BBC, his case bears affinity to that of Gary McKinnon. Malicious absorbed or not, Bevan and Pryce approved that alike aggressive networks are vulnerable.

8. Kevin Poulsen

In 1983, a 17-year-old Poulsen, application the alias Dark Dante, afraid into ARPANET, the Pentagon’s computer network. Although he was bound caught, the government absitively not to arraign Poulsen, who was a accessory at the time. Instead, he was let off with a warning.

Poulsen didn’t heed this admonishing and connected hacking. In 1988, Poulsen afraid a federal computer and dug into files pertaining to the deposed admiral of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos. When apparent by authorities, Poulsen went underground. While he was on the run, Poulsen kept busy, hacking government files and absolute secrets. According to his own website, in 1990, he afraid a radio base challenge and ensured that he was the 102nd caller, acceptable a cast new Porsche, a vacation, and $20,000.

Poulsen was anon arrested and barred from application a computer for three years. He has back adapted to white hat hacking and journalism, autograph about cyber aegis and web-related socio-political causes for Wired, The Daily Beast and his own blog Threat Level. Paulson additionally teamed with added arch hackers to assignment on assorted projects committed to amusing amends and abandon of information. Perhaps best notably, alive with Adam Swartz and Jim Dolan to advance the open-source software SecureDrop, initially accepted as DeadDrop. Eventually, Poulsen angry over the platform, which enabled defended advice amid journalists and sources, to the Abandon of Press Foundation.

9. Jonathan James

Poulsen was anon arrested and barred from application a computer for three years. He has back adapted to white hat hacking and journalism, autograph about cyber aegis and web-related socio-political causes for Wired, The Daily Beast and his own blog Threat Level. Paulson additionally teamed with added arch hackers to assignment on assorted projects committed to amusing amends and abandon of information. Perhaps best notably, alive with Adam Swartz and Jim Dolan to advance the open-source software SecureDrop, initially accepted as DeadDrop. Eventually, Poulsen angry over the platform, which enabled defended advice amid journalists and sources, to the Abandon of Press Foundation.

James was arrested in 2000 and was bedevilled to a six months abode arrest and banned from recreational computer use. However, a acquittal abuse acquired him to serve six months in jail. Jonathan James became the youngest being to be bedevilled of actionable cyber abomination laws. In 2007, TJX, a administration store, was afraid and abounding customer’s clandestine advice were compromised. Despite a abridgement of evidence, authorities doubtable that James may accept been involved.

In 2008, James committed suicide by gunshot. According to the Daily Mail, his suicide agenda stated, “I accept no acceptance in the 'justice' system. Perhaps my accomplishments today, and this letter, will accelerate a stronger bulletin to the public. Either way, I accept absent ascendancy over this situation, and this is my alone way to achieve control.”

10. ASTRA

This hacker differs from the others on this account in that he has never been about identified. However, according to the Daily Mail, some advice has been appear about ASTRA. Namely that he was apprehended by authorities in 2008, and at that time he was articular as a 58-year-old Greek mathematician. Reportedly, he had been hacking into the Dassault Group, for about bisected a decade. During that time, he blanket acid bend weapons technology software and abstracts which he again awash to 250 individuals about the world. His hacking amount the Dassault Group $360 actor in damages. No one knows why his complete character has never been revealed, but the chat 'ASTRA' is a Sanskrit chat for 'weapon'.

Some of these top hackers aimed to accomplish the apple a bigger place, others to prove UFO theories. Some capital money and others hoped for fame. All these bodies played a analytical role in the change of the internet and cyber security.

Source : https://www.kaspersky.com/

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