top 10 notorious black hat hackers

7/31/2019 Top 10 Notorious Black Hat Hackers

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By :- Prince AB

1 Top 10 Notorious Black Hat Hackers BY :- Prince AB

Top 10 Notorious Black Hat Hackers

To accompany the technological advancements of the computer world and

the constant changing definition of a hacker, we thought it was time to

look back at ten of the most notorious black hat hackers and the

legendary hacks that earned them such a title. First, it should be known

that a black hat hacker is computing slang for a person who engages inillegal or malicious hacking. A white hat hacker is a computer hacker

who intends to improve internet security. It is note-worthy that many

white hat hackers, such as Steve Jobs of apple, Mark Zuckerberg of

Facebook, and even many hackers listed below, were once black hat

hackers.


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By :- Prince AB


Gary McKinnon :-

In 2002, an exceptionally odd message appeared on a US Army computer screen:Your security system is crap, it read. I am Solo. I will continue to disrupt at thehighest levels. It was later identified as the work of Scottish systems administrator,Gary McKinnon.

McKinnon suffers from Aspergers syndrome, which is the least severe form ofautism. The symptoms of Aspergers syndrome certainly match Garys actions: thatis, highly intelligent with an exceptional understanding of complex systems. Though

sufferers often have difficulty reading social cues and acknowledging the impact oftheir often-obsessive behavior, they tend to be geniuses in one particular subject.For Gary, it was computers.

Gary has been accused of executing the largest ever hack of United Statesgovernment computer networksincluding Army, Air Force, Navy and NASAsystems. The court had recommended that McKinnon be apprehended to the UnitedStates to face charges of illegally accessing 97 computers, causing a total of$700,000 in damage. Even more interesting are McKinnons motives for the largescale hackings, which he claims were in search of information on UFOs. He believed

the US government was hiding such information in its military computers.


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By :- Prince AB


2.Jonathan James :- (A.K.A Comrade)

Jonathan James, 16-year-old black hat hacker, became the first juvenile imprisonedfor cybercrime in the United States. James gained his notoriety by implementing aseries of successful intrusions into various systems. At an amazingly young age of15, James specialized in hacking high-profile government systems such as NASAand the Department of Defense. He was reported to have stolen software worthover $1.7 million. He also hacked into the Defense Threat Reduction Agency andintercepted over 3,000 highly secretive messages passing to and from the DTRAemployees, while collecting many usernames and passwords.

On May 18, 2008, at the age of 25, James committed suicide using a gun. Thewords in his suicide note provide some insight into this obviously brilliant buttroubled youth who thought he would be a scapegoat and blamed for cyber crimeshe did not commit: I have no faith in the justice system. Perhaps my actions today,and this letter, will send a stronger message to the public. Either way, I have lostcontrol over this situation, and this is my only way to regain control.


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By :- Prince AB


3.George Hotz :-

The name of the acclaimed jailbreak artist, George Hotz, will forever be associatedwith the April 2011 PlayStation breach. Being one of the first hackers ever tojailbreak the Sony PlayStation 3, Hotz found himself in the midst of a veryrelentless, public and messy court battle with Sonyperhaps worsened by Hotzspublic release of his jail breaking methods. In a stated retaliation to Sonys gap ofthe unstated rules of jail breakingnever prosecutethe hacker group Anonymousattacked Sony in what would be the dubbed as the most costly security break of alltime to date.

Hackers broke into the PlayStation Network and stole personal information of some77 million users. However, Hotz denied any responsibility for the attack, and addedRunning homebrew and exploring security on your devices is cool; hacking intosomeone elses server and stealing databases of user info. is not cool.


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By :- Prince AB


4.Adrian Lamo :-

Nicknamed the homeless hacker, Adrian Lamo used coffee shops, librariesand internet cafs as his locations for hacking. Apart from being thehomeless hacker, Lamo is widely-known for breaking into a series of high-profile computer networks, which include The New York Times, Microsoft,Yahoo!, and MCI WorldCom. In 2002, he added his name to the The NewYork Times internal database of expert sources and utilized LexisNexisaccount to conduct research on high-profile subjects. The Times filed acomplaint, and a warrant for Lamos arrest was issued, followed by a 15-month investigation by federal prosecutors in New York.

After several days in hiding, he finally surrendered to the US Marshals, andthen to the FBI. Lamo was ordered to pay approximately $65,000 indamages and was sentenced to six months house arrest at his parents home,with an additional two years of probation. In June 2010, Lamo disclosed thename of Bradley Manning to U.S. Army authorities as the source of the July12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike video leak to Wikileaks. Lamo is presentlyworking as a threat analyst and donates his time and skills to a Sacramento-based nonprofit organization.


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By :- Prince AB


5.David Smith :-

Smiths fame is due to being the author of the infamous e-mail virus, Melissa. Smithclaims that the Melissa virus was never intended to cause harm, but its simple meansof propagation (each infected computer sent out multiple infected emails)overloaded computer systems and servers around the world. Smiths virus takes anunusual turn in that it was originally hidden in a file that contained passwords to 80well-known pornography websites. The name Melissa was derived from a lapdancer Smith met while on a trip in Florida. Even though over 60,000 email viruses

have been discovered, Smith is the only person to go to federal prison in the UnitedStates for sending one.


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By :- Prince AB


6.Michael Calce :- (A.K.A. MafiaBoy)

In February of 2000, Michael Calce launched a series of widely known denial-of-service attacks against large commercial websites, including Yahoo!, Amazon.com,Dell, eBay, and CNN. He hacked Yahoo! when it was still the webs leading searchengine and caused it to shutdown for about an hour. Like many hackers, Calceexploited websites primarily for pride and establishing dominance for himself andhis cybergroup, TNT. In 2001, the Montreal Youth Court sentenced Calce to eight

months of open custody, one year of probation, restricted use of the Internet, and aminimal fine.


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By :- Prince AB


7. Robert Tappan Morris :-

On November 2, 1988, Robert Morris released a worm that took down one-tenthof the Internet, crippling 6,000 plus computer systems. It didnt take long for the

police to track him down. Due in part to the need for social acceptance thatseems to be common amongst many young hackers, Morris made the fault ofchatting about his worm for months before its release on the Internet. Morrisclaimed it was just a stunt, and added that he truly regretted causing $15

million worth of damage: the estimated amount of carnage his worm leftbehind.

Morris was one of the first to be tried and convicted under the Computer Fraudand Abuse Act but only had community service and a fine as his penalty. Thedefense for such a light sentence was that Morris worm didnt destroy theactual contents of affected computers. Morris now works in the department of

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology (MIT).


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By :- Prince AB


8.Vladimir Levin :-

Its almost like the opening of a James Bond movie: in 1994, while workingfrom his laptop from his Russian apartment in St. Petersburg, Vladimir Levintransferred $10 million from the accounts of Citibank clients to his ownaccounts around the world.

However, Levins career as a hacker was only short lived, with a capture,

imprisonment and recovery of all but $400,000 of the original $10 million.During Levins 1997 trial in the United States, he was said to have coordinatedthe first ever internet bank raid. The truth is Levins ability to transfer Citibankclient funds to his own accounts was possible through stolen account numbersand PINs. Levins scam was a simple interception of clients calls whilerecording the punched in account numbers.


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By :- Prince AB


9. Albert Gonzalez :-

Cyber-criminal Albert Gonzalez has been accused of masterminding the biggestATM and credit card theft in history; from 2005 to 2007, he and his cybergrouphad allegedly sold more than 170 million card and ATM numbers. Gonzalezs teamused SQL injection techniques to create malware backdoors on several corporatesystems in order to launch packet-sniffing (specifically, ARP Spoofing) attacks,allowing him to steal computer data from internal corporate networks. When hewas arrested, authorities seized $1.6 million in cash including $1.1 million found inplastic bags placed in a three-foot drum which had been buried in his parentsbackyard. In 2010, Gonzalez was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.


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By :- Prince AB


10.Kevin Poulsen :- (A.K.A Dark Dante)

The notorious 80s black hat hacker, Kevin Poulsen, gained recognition for hishacking of the telephone lines for LA radio station KIIS-FM, securing himself aplace as the 102nd caller and winning a brand new Porsche 944, among otherprizes. Law enforcement dubbed Poulsen the Hannibal Lecter of computer crime.Poulsen went underground as a fugitive when the FBI began its search for him, butin 1991, he was finally captured.

He pleaded guilty to seven counts of mail, wire and computer fraud, moneylaundering, obstruction of justice, and for obtaining information on covertbusinesses run by the FBI. Kevin Poulsen was sentenced to 51 months in prison (4years and 3 months), which was the longest sentence ever given for hacking at thetime. However, since serving time, Poulsen has worked as a journalist and is now asenior editor for Wired News. Poulsens most note-worthy article details his work onidentifying 744 sex offenders with MySpace profiles.


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+ Kevin Mitnick :-

Kevin David Mitnick (born on August 6, 1963) is an American computer securityconsultant, author, and hacker. In the late 20th century, he was convicted of variouscomputer- and communications-related crimes. At the time of his arrest, he was themost-wanted computer criminal in the United States. Mitnick gained unauthorizedaccess to his first computer network in 1979, at 16, when a friend gave him thephone number for the Ark, the computer system Digital Equipment Corporation(DEC) used for developing their RSTS/E operating system software. He broke into

DECs computer network and copied their software, a crime he was charged withand convicted of in 1988.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Mitnick gained unauthorized access todozens of computer networks while he was a fugitive. He used cloned cellularphones to hide his location and, among other things, copied valuable proprietarysoftware from some of the countrys largest cellular telephone and computercompanies. Mitnick also intercepted and stole computer passwords, alteredcomputer networks, and broke into and read private e-mail.

Due to his fame he is included as a bonus entry here.

top 10 notorious black hat hackers

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