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Black Hat

The document profiles 10 notable hackers throughout history and their impacts. It discusses Kevin Mitnick, considered the most-wanted cybercriminal in the US for hacking phone systems. It also mentions Robert Morris, who released a worm in 1988 that brought down 10% of the internet, costing $15 million in damages. Finally, it briefly outlines the hacking activities of Vladimir Levin, Michael Calce, Kevin Poulsen, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, David Smith, Jonathan James, George Hotz, and Gary McKinnon.

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Romulo Rosario Marquez
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328 views3 pages

Black Hat

The document profiles 10 notable hackers throughout history and their impacts. It discusses Kevin Mitnick, considered the most-wanted cybercriminal in the US for hacking phone systems. It also mentions Robert Morris, who released a worm in 1988 that brought down 10% of the internet, costing $15 million in damages. Finally, it briefly outlines the hacking activities of Vladimir Levin, Michael Calce, Kevin Poulsen, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, David Smith, Jonathan James, George Hotz, and Gary McKinnon.

Uploaded by

Romulo Rosario Marquez
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Black hat, white hat, or somewhere in between, hackers

have had a huge impact on the evolution of information


technology. See if you agree that these 10 hackers belong
on this list.
Hacking is not a recent invention. In fact, it has been around since the 1930s,
although not always associated with computers. Here's a rundown of some of
the most noteworthy hackers in history.

1: Kevin Mitnick
Kevin Mitnick, once considered the most-wanted cybercriminal in the United
States, is often touted as the poster child of computer hacking. Kevin
mastered an early form of social engineering (scamming operators) and
computer hacking to gain access to and modify telephony switching systems.
After a very public two-year chase, arrest ,and incarceration, the hacker
community collectively rose in protest against what they viewed as a witch
hunt.

2: Robert Tappan Morris


On November 2, 1988, Robert Morris released a worm that brought down
one-tenth of the Internet. With the need for social acceptance that seems to
infect many young hackers, Morris made the mistake of chatting about his
worm for months before he actually released it on the Internet, so it didn't take
long for the police to track him down. Morris said it was just a stunt and added
that he truly regretted wreaking $15 million worth of damage, the estimated
amount of carnage caused by his worm.

3: Vladimir Levin
Seeming like the opening of a James Bond movie, Vladimir Levin was working
on his laptop in 1994 from his St. Petersburg, Russia, apartment. He
transferred $10 million from Citibank clients to his own accounts around the
world. As with most Bond movies, Levin's career as a hacker was short lived
-- with a capture, imprisonment, and recovery of all but $400,000 of the
original $10 million.

4: Michael Calce
Michael Calce, also known as MafiaBoy, was arrested in February 2000 for
launching a denial-of-service attack that brought down many of the Internet's
largest sites, including Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo. Calce's lawyer, Yan
Romanowski, claimed, "If [MafiaBoy] had used all his powers, he could have
done unimaginable damage." It is widely believed that Calce is no more than a
script kiddie. His attacks, however successful, were implemented using
computer scripts that clogged networks full of garbage data.

5: Kevin Poulsen
Kevin Poulsen, known as Dark Dante in the hacker community, specialized in
hacking phone systems, particularly radio stations. This talent allowed only
calls originating from his house to make it through to the station, assuring him
of wins in listener radio contests. His iconic 1991 hack was a takeover of all of
the telephone lines for the Los Angeles KIIS-FM radio station, guaranteeing
that he would be the 102nd caller and win the prize of a Porsche 944 S2. The
bold Poulsen was wanted by the FBI for federal computer hacking at the same
time he was winning the Porsche and $20,000 in prize money at a separate
station. Poulsen spent 51 months in a federal prison, the longest sentence of
a cybercriminal at that time.

6: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak


The now-famous founders of Apple Computer spent part of their youth as
hackers. They spent their pre-Apple days (circa 1971) building Blue Box
devices (an early phreaking tool allowing users to make long distance calls
without the financial charges) and selling them to fellow students at the
University of California, Berkeley.

7: David Smith
Smith's fame comes from being the author of the infamous email virus known
as Melissa. According to Smith, the Melissa virus was never meant 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 was unusual in that it was originally hidden in a file
containing passwords to 80 well-known pornography Web sites. Even though
more than 60,000 email viruses have been discovered, Smith is the only
person to go to federal prison in the United States for sending one.

8: Jonathan James
James gained notoriety when he became the first juvenile, at age 16, to be
sent to prison for hacking. James specialized in hacking high-profile
government systems, such as NASA and the Department of Defense. He was
reported to have stolen software worth more than $1.7 million.

9: George Hotz
While George Hotz may be a renowned jailbreak artist, he's best known for
being named as the primary reason for the April 2011 PlayStation breach. As
one of the first hackers to jailbreak the Sony PlayStation 3, Hotz found himself
in the middle of a very mean, public, and messy court battle with Sony --
perhaps because of his public release of his jailbreaking methods. In stated
retaliation, the hacker group Anonymous attacked Sony in what has been the
most costly security break of all time. Hotz denied any responsibility for the
attack and said, "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."

10: Gary McKinnon


In 2002, a decidedly odd message appeared on a U.S. Army computer: "Your
security system is crap," it read. "I am Solo. I will continue to disrupt at the
highest levels." It was later found to be the work of Gary McKinnon, a Scottish
system administrator. Gary has been accused of mounting the largest ever
hack of U.S. 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 $700,000 in damage. Adding even more interest to
McKinnon's actions is his insistence that much of his hacking was in search of
information on UFOs, information he believed the U.S. government was hiding
in its military computers.

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