WORLD BIGGEST HACKERS AND HACKS

                                 

                                     THE HACKERS AND HACKS

The Term Hacker Is Not Always Applied As It Should Be. In The Hacking Community In Particular, There Can Be Stark Divisions Between Hackers -- People Immensely Skilled At Navigating Computer Systems And Diagnosing Security Flaws -- And Crackers -- Those Who Use Their Hacking Knowledge For Malicious Gain. This Same Dichotomy Is Sometimes Represented By The Terms White Hat And Black Hat.

Hackers A Group That Consists Of Skilled Computer Enthusiasts.

  A Black Hat Hacker Is Someone On The Outside Who Would Break Into A System In Order To Cause Damage Or For Financial Gain .

A White Hat Hacker, For Example, May Be Someone Hired By A Company To Break Into Its Computer Network In Order To Find Vulnerabilities.

10.KEVIN MITNICK 

Kevin Mitnick Top Most World Hackersthe Department Of Justice Describes Him As “The Most Wanted Computer Criminal .In United States History.” His Exploits Were Detailed In Two Movies: Freedom Downtime And Takedown.

Not all hackers break the law and even fewer become the targets of FBI manhunts. But Kevin Mitnick was jailed twice -- first in 1988, and then, after a plea bargain, from 1995 until 2000. For three years, he wasn't allowed to the use the Internet.

He managed to send and receive e-mail by having his girlfriend do all the clicking and typing; Mitnick just watched the screen.

He started outexploiting the Los Angeles bus punch card system to get free rides. Then, like Apple co-founder Steve Woznia.dabbled in phone phreaking. Although there were numerous offenses, Mitnick was ultimately convicted for breakinginto the Digital Equipment Corpora,ion’s computer network and stealing software.

Since regaining his computer privileges, he has started his own security-consulting firm, in addition to making rounds on the public speaking circuit.

9.KEVIN POULSEN

Like Kevin Mitnick, Kevin Poulsen was hunted by the FBI and was the subject of a book "The Watchman: The Twisted Life and Crimes of Serial Hacker Kevin Poulsen" chronicling his hacking exploits. And like Mitnick, Poulsen eventually went straight, giving up hacking.

Poulsen worlds best hacker Also known as Dark Dante, While still a child, he learned how to whistle into a payphone in order to get free calls (he channeled the sound through his braces). He hacked a radio station's phone lines in order to win a call-in contest whose prize was a Porsche.

Later, when his photo came up on the show Unsolved Mysteries,

 , 1-800 phone lines for the program crashed. Ultimately, Poulsen was captured in a supermarketand served a sentence of five years.Since serving time, Poulsen has worked as a journalist. He is now a senior editor for Wired News.

8. ADRIAN LAMO 

Earlier on in his hacking career, Adrian Lamo was something of a good Samaritan, known by the moniker "the homeless hacker" because he sometimes took up residence in abandoned buildings.

As a hacker, Lamo broke into the networks of a number of major companies -- Excite@Home, MCI WorldCom, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google -- but he often contacted the companies and told them about the security holes. In some cases, he also helped them fix these holes without accepting any compensation.

He finally got into trouble when he hacked into The New York Times -- from a computer at a Kinko's -- in 2003. He found a trove of information there, including personal details on thousands of people who had written for the paper, including celebrities and ex-presidents. To avoid jail time, he negotiated a plea bargain that included six months of house arrest.

  Lamo was diagnosed with Asperger's, an autism-spectrum disorder commonly associated with people of high intelligence who have difficulty socializing.

Lamo is currently working as an award-winning journalist and public speaker.

 7.GARY MCKINNON

 Like Adrian Lamo, Gary McKinnon has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. This Scottish hacker's supporters have protested plans for the U.K. government to extradite him to the United States to face trial for allegedly hacking into U.S. government computers. Those working on McKinnon's behalf worry that he is "too psychologically fragile" and may commit suicide.

McKinnon is under suspicion for hacking into U.S. government computer networks in late 2001 and early 2002, in what's been called a historic breach of security . A British court judgment accuses McKinnon of infiltrating 97 computers, installing hacking software, deleting important files and stealing information.

 He confessed that he left a threatening note on one Army computer, in which he identified himself by the name "SOLO."

Top 10 Hackers Gary In World Gary Mckinnon, 40, Accused Of Mounting The Largest Ever Hack Of United States Government Computer Networks — Including Army, Air Force, Navy And NASA Systems.

 The Court Has Recommended ,That Mckinnon Be Extradited To The United States To Face Charges Of Illegally Accessing 97 Computers,Causing US$700,000 (400,000 Pounds; Euro 588,000) In Damage.

6. Robert Tappan Morris

Robert Tappan Morris is now a tenured professor at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, but he has a colorful history as one of the computer world's most renowned hackers.

morris one of top 10 hacker n crackerMorris, son of former National Security Agency scientist Robert Morris,is known as the creator of the Morris Worm, the first computer worm to be unleashed on the Internet.

Morris wrote the code for the worm while he was a student at Cornell. He asserts that he intended to use it to see how large the Internet was. The worm, however, replicated itself excessively, slowing computers down so that they were no longer usable. It is not possible to know exactly how many computers were affected, but experts estimate an impact of 6,000 machines.

                  

He was sentenced to three years’ probation, 400 hours of community service and a

fined $10,500.Morris is currently working as a tenured professor at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

 5. John Draper

While many hackers go mainstream and open consulting firms or become university professors, some never quite get there, and wind up in prison or somewhere else on society's margins. John Draper is one such person.

 

After serving as a radar technician in the Air Force in the mid-1960s, Draper began tinkering with the phone system, learning its intricacies, its internal codes (including, allegedly, a code that allowed him to get President Nixon on the phone) and how to hack the system for free calls.

For his exploits, he became known as a "phone freak," adopting the name after finding a toy whistle in a cereal box and learning that the whistle could be used to imitate telephone tones. 

Later, Draper linked up with Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, and also wrote one of the first word processing programs eventually picked up by Apple and IBM. But his eccentric behavior, poor business sense and bad luck hampered his ability to make money and to stay in a job for long. In the late 1970s, he served two stints in prison for phone fraud.

4.The Masters of Deception

The Masters of Deception (MOD) was a group of hackers based in New York who, in the late 1980s, went on a hacking spree, taking particular advantage of the country's phone system in order to hack into various corporate and government networks.

Although members of the MOD were top-notch hackers, their big mistake likely came when they engaged in a rivalry with the Legion of Doom (LOD).

The battle between the two came to be known as the Great Hacker War, although the conflict allegedly started when one LOD member used a disparaging racial epithet in reference to an MOD member. What followed was a back-and-forth battle between the hacking groups, which also involved LOD members providing security advice to corporations that MOD had targeted.

Eventually, five members of MOD pled guilty to various crimes, and four spent brief periods in jail. The groups' members dispersed, and many found work for technology and security firms. Their story has been chronicled in many articles and books, including one whose title says it all: "Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace."

3. Matthew Bevan and Richard Pryce

Some hackers steal information or money, or damage or hijack systems, but few hackers can claim to have nearly started a war. But in 1996, Matthew Bevan and Richard Pryce were accused of just that by the U.S. government. Bevan and Pryce, who are both British, were arrested separately, several months apart, for trying to break into U.S. military systems.

 According to a U.S. government report, the two allegedly worked together for several months, first establishing an electronic beachhead on a computer system located at Griffiss Air Force Base, in New York. They then installed password-collecting programs and began hacking their way into other government system.

After discovering the intrusions, U.S. officials became especially alarmed when they found that the duo may have infiltrated a North Korean system during an especially tenuous time of negotiations with that country over its nuclear-weapons program. Because the intrusion came via a hijacked U.S. government computer, it could've been construed as an act of war. Ultimately it was discovered that the hack in question had targeted a South Korean government agency 

2. Jonathan James

Jonathan james world top 10 hackers The youth, known as “cOmrade” on the Internet, pleaded guilty to intercepting 3,300 email messages at one of the Defense Department’s most sensitive operations and stealing data from 13 NASA computers, including some devoted to the new International Space Station. James sentenced at 16 years old. 

He installed a backdoor into a Defense Threat Reduction Agency server. The DTRA is an agency of the Department of Defense charged with reducing the threat to the U.S. and its allies from nuclear, biological,chemical, conventional and special weapons. 

The backdoor he created enabled him to view sensitive e-mail sand capture employee usernames and passwords.James also cracked into NASA computers, stealing software worth approximately $1.7 million. 

According to the Department of Justice, “The software supported the International Space Station’s physical environment, including control of the temperature and humidity within the living space.”

 NASA was forced to shut down its computer systems, ultimately racking up a $41,000 cost.

James' father supported his son, saying that he hadn't caused any damage and had exposed security flaws .Unfortunately, after leaving the juvenile institution, James' troubles continued when he tested positive for drugs. And when his mother died when he was 18, that left him alone with her house and little motivation to work, a recipe for hacking.

In 2008, government agents raided his house as part of an investigation into what was then called the largest identity theft case in U.S. history.

 James and others were suspected of hacking into the systems of many large businesses and stealing information as part of an identity and credit-card theft ring that had netted millions of dollars.

Two weeks after the raid, James committed suicide. He left a suicide note explaining that, while he considered himself innocent, he believed that because of his past notoriety, federal authorities would pin the blame on him rather than other guilty parties

 James and others were suspected of hacking into the systems of many large businesses and stealing information as part of an identity and credit-card theft ring that had netted millions of dollars. 

Two weeks after the raid, James committed suicide. He left a suicide note explaining that, while he considered himself innocent, he believed that because of his past notoriety, federal authorities would pin the blame on him rather than other guilty parties.

  

1. Albert   Gonzalez

In 2009, Albert Gonzalez pleaded guilty to hacking into numerous companies' computer systems in connection with the so-called TJX identity theft ring -- the same series of crimes that led to the raid on Jonathan James' house. The group that Gonzalez was a part of stole 36 million credit card numbers from TJX, which owns TJ Maxx and other large stores, although 70 percent or so of these cards were expired .  

Still, the costs to the companies responding to the attacks were immense; TJX alone spent more than $170 million.

What's particularly strange about Gonzalez's case is that for years he worked as an informant for the secret service, providing information on other credit card thieves. However, by continuing and even expanding his criminal behavior, he left himself open to prosecution and was eventually sentenced to 20 years in prison .

Several other men also were sentenced to prison time for their participation in the ring, although Gonzalez's sentence remains the longest ever handed down to a hacker in the United States.