Top 10 Infamous Hackers

#10: Kevin Poulsen

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Calling himself “Dark Dante,” Poulsen started hacking as a teenager, targeting telephone companies and phone lines. His most infamous crime was taking over the phone lines of an LA radio station to make himself the 102nd caller and win a brand new Porsche. But the authorities were hot on his heels, suspecting him of also hacking into US military computers. He was featured in an episode of “Unsolved Mysteries,” during which “someone” crashed the show’s tip hotline. Poulsen was arrested shortly after, did five years in prison, and now works as a respected tech journalist.

#9: Vladimir Levin

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Bank robberies have changed a bit since the old days. Now, all a hacker needs are the right codes. One of the first in this new generation of bank robbers was Russian systems administrator Vladimir Levin. In 1995, he managed to transfer a whopping $10.7m from Citibank. His method was surprisingly simple. Accessing the bank’s telecommunication system, he just listened to customers provide their account information. Levin was extradited to the US and sentenced to three years in prison, and Citibank recovered most of the dough. It later came out that a hacking group had sold Levin the access data for just a hundred bucks.

This Greek hacker named himself after the Sanskrit word for “weapon,” specifically a projectile such as an arrow. Over a period of five years, ASTRA penetrated deep into the files of French aviation company Dassault Group. His target: data on military-grade aircraft and 3D modelling software, which he then sold to hundreds of buyers around the world. His luck ran out in 2008, when he was arrested and sentenced to six years in the slammer. The estimated amount of damage to Dassault was about $360 million.

A lot about Guccifer 2.0 is a mystery. He claims to be the hacker behind the 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak, which revealed that DNC officials had hoped to derail Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. His alias alludes to the original “Guccifer,” Romanian hacker Marcel Lazăr Lehel, who claimed without substantiation to have hacked Hillary Clinton’s private email server. But who is Guccifer 2.0 really? A host of US intelligence experts claim he’s a front for Russian hackers. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has cast doubt on this conclusion, and Lehel believes it was an inside job.

As civil war rages through Syria, hackers are waging another, parallel war online. The Syrian Electronic Army is a pro-Assad organization that targets opposition websites and western media outlets. In 2013 they posted that the White House had been bombed from the Associated Press twitter account, temporarily wiping billions off the US stock market. But their strategies go further than defacing, redirecting, and crashing web pages. More sinisterly, they also use electronic surveillance to monitor dissidents and foreign aid workers. Since Assad has been accused of war crimes, this places these monitored opponents at significant risk.

This hacker had a chance to go straight . . . but went for broke instead. Arrested for credit card information theft in 2003, Gonzalez, a.k.a. “soupnazi,” cut a deal with the authorities. He would inform on his accomplices at cybercrime bazaar “ShadowCrew” and avoid prosecution. Up to this point, his story echoes that of Hector Monsegur, co-founder of hacking group LulzSec, who made a similar deal. But Gonzalez l later pressed his luck, launching campaigns against Dave & Busters, TJX and Heartland Payment Systems. He and his crew stole over 170 million card and account numbers. Gonzalez got rich, but he also got busted, and was jailed for 20 years.

Lamo, who passed away in 2018, is best known for turning in Chelsea Manning for her disclosure of classified documents to WikiLeaks. But he was also once a grayhat hacker, accessing private networks for kicks, then exposing system weaknesses. His biggest hack was breaking into The New York Times. It was also his biggest mistake. He added his real name to their database of op-ed writers, then notified former hacker Kevin Poulsen to publicize his feat - hoping that the Gray Lady would thank him. Instead, the paper pressed charges, and Lamo was fined and sentenced to two years probation.

#3: Anonymous

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Some are in it for the lulz, some for the “good of mankind.” Anonymous is a hacking collective that originated on the imageboard 4chan and REALLY hates attempts to censor or control the internet. It first made headlines for a hacking campaign against the Church of Scientology in retaliation for the church’s attempts to remove a Tom Cruise indoctrination video from online. Other high profile targets have included Amazon, MasterCard, and PayPal, after they cut off services to WikiLeaks. In 2020, they rose to prominence again with hacks in support of the George Floyd protests. Although they tend to enter the spotlight sporadically, Anonymous is legion, and still very much active.

There are hackers who hack for personal profit, or just for the thrill of it. Then there are hackers who break into systems . . . to search for aliens. In 2001, Scottish systems administrator Gary McKinnon infiltrated NASA networks claiming he was seeking proof of extraterrestrials and alien technologies. And according to McKinnon, he found it. He also allegedly caused a shutdown of thousands of military computers. After a ten year legal battle, McKinnon managed to avoid extradition to the US, and all charges were dropped. Before we reveal the identity of our top pick, here are some honorable mentions: Jonathan James Hacked Into the U.S. Department of Defence for Fun When He Was 15 Max Ray Butler [aka Iceman] Jailed for Stealing Almost Two Million Credit Card Numbers Mathew Bevan [aka Kuji] Hacked Into USAF, NASA, & NATO Looking for Information About UFOs

#1: Kevin Mitnick

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He was once the United States' most wanted hacker. Mitnick’s hacking was unique in that he used social engineering to access networks - impersonating authority figures to trick people into divulging information and passwords. In his blackhat days, he copied software from Digital Equipment Corporation’s networks, did time, but went straight back to hacking. While on the run, he was able to monitor FBI communications, even leaving doughnuts for them before abandoning a hideout. After a federal prosecutor claimed he could launch a nuclear missile by whistling into a telephone, he served out some of his five year sentence in solitary confinement, but now works as a successful security consultant.