World Top 5 Hackers of all time

A hacker is a self motivated person who seeks and exploits weaknesses in a computer system or computer network in order to steal or change or destroy information. Hackers learn through experimentation and persistence, as opposed to through “traditional” means. Hackers listed below are the worlds top 5 most famous  hackers.

1. Gary Mckinnon

Gary McKinnon (born 10 February 1966) is a Scottish system administrator and hacker who was accused in 2002 of perpetrating the “biggest military computer hack of all time,”. He Hacked  97 United States military and NASA computers over a 13-month period between February 2001 and March 2002, at his girlfriend’s aunt’s house in London, using the name ‘Solo’. Although McKinnon claimed that he was only searching for information related to free energy suppression and UFO activity cover-ups. But according to U.S. authorities, he deleted a number of critical files, rendering over 300 computers inoperable and resulting in over $700,000 in damages. McKinnon also posted a notice on the military’s website: “Your security is crap”.

2. Jonathan James

Jonathan James was an American hacker. James gained notoriety when he became the first juvenile to be sent to prison for hacking. He was sentenced at 16 years old. At the age of 15 years old [In 1999] Jonathan James hacked into Bellsouth and Miami-Dade school network. He damaged NASA Systems, It costed $41,000 to fix the systems. Jonathan stealed software from NASA It worth $1.7 Million.

In 2000 James house raided by US local police, Jonathan James was sentenced 6 months house arrest and banned from using Computer. On may 18th James Committed suicide, He wrote “I honestly, honestly had nothing to do with TJX” in his suicide note.

3. Kevin Mithick

On third number in our Top 5 Hackers of all time list is the the man who considers as the top hacker of his time. He was declares as the  “most wanted computer criminal in U.S. history.” by the  US Department of Justice.

Kevin Mitnick was jailed twice for his crimes, once in 1988, and then again from 1995 to 2000. He damaged some Communication networks like Nokia, Motorola and Sun Microsystem etc. Kevin Mitnick has damaged DEC systems source code [Digital Equipment Corporation has spent around $160,000 in cleanup the DEC systems]. He didn’t refer to his hacking activities as ‘hacking’ and instead called them ‘social engineering’. He is now as a computer security consultant and author. He is the author of two books The Art of Deception & The Art of Intrusion.

4. Andrian Lamo

Adrian Lamo (born February 20, 1981) is an American threat analyst and “grey hat” hacker. He first gained media attention for breaking into several high-profile computer networks, including those of The New York Times, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, culminating in his 2003 arrest.

He was named ‘the homeless hacker’ for his penchant for using coffee shops, libraries and internet cafés as his bases for hacking. According to The Week, 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. 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 currently works as a journalist.

5. Albert Gonzalez

 

 5. Albert GonzalezIf your credit-card information was stolen recently, there’s a decent chance it fell into the hands of Albert Gonzalez. The infamous computer hacker was indicted along with two unnamed co-conspirators in a New Jersey court on Aug. 17 for the alleged theft of some 130 million card numbers. The crime is believed to be the largest retail-store theft in U.S. history. Albert accused of masterminding the combined credit card theft and subsequent reselling of more than 170 million cards and ATM numbers from 2005 through 2007—the biggest such fraud in history. -