The history of hacking would fill the pages of thousands of books, but the history of the most famous hackers out there would be the best seller of them all. The fact is, plenty of tech-savvy people know how to mod a game or how to hack into a Facebook or an Instagram account.
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Every basic step of hacking is at our disposal with countless tutorials widely available online. But the basics alone are not enough to make the most famous hackers in the world. In figuring in the list of 10 hackers of all time, the hackers below have targeted billion dollar corporations. Let’s find out how the following hackers gained their notoriety and how they got into our top 10.
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10- Loyd Blankenship
The number 10 on our list is the well-known Loyd Blankenship. This infamous hacker doesn’t actually have a hack that can be attributed only to him. He was an important member of the Legion of Doom who were rivals with the MoD, which stand for Masters of Deception. He activated as a hacker during the 80s.
He was known as the Mentor and you can find all there is to know about him in The Hacker of Manifesto, a book he wrote after his arrest in 1986. This book is about how hackers do nothing wrong, but they only feed their curiosity.
9- George Hotz
Number 9 in our top is the infamous George Hotz. He was one of the first hackers tojailbreak the Sony Playstation 3 and for that, he found himself in the middle of a messy court trial with Sony. It has been also said that the group Anonymus attacked Sony, which has been the cause of one of the most expensive security breaches of all times.
8- Adrian Lamo
Adrian Lamo is placed at number 8 on our list. He was a mobile hacker and he activated from different cafes, tea and coffee shops and even libraries all over the world. He claims to have done it for fun and as a dare to challenge himself, as he would hack his way into the computers found in the cafes and then immediately tell the owner about the security break and vulnerabilities. In playing a prank, he also added his name into the database of the New York Times.
7- David L. Smith
The story about David L. Smith will take you all the way back to the days of usenet. At that time, this hacker took advantage of open newsgroups and he spread the notorious Melissa worm virus, which he designed and created, hacking its way into just about every user’s computer. The Melissa worm was the first virus to ever successfully transport through email. The damages caused by this worm is estimated to total at nearly $80 million.
6- MoD – The Masters of Deception
Don’t think that we have forgotten the infamous group known as the Masters of Deception. They activated in the year 1980. They broke into the computers and the security of many corporations to wreck havoc, generally speaking.
The most famous victim of this group was AT&T, whose system had been broken through by MoD. They also hacked into the company’s various phone networks. In 1992, the group got busted and all of its members have been sent to jail with suspended sentences.
5- Michael Calce
At the early age of 15, when most teenagers are looking for girlfriends and faking licenses, Michael Calce shut down sites such as Yahoo, Amazon and eBay. He called himself MafiaBoy and he attacked 75 computers acorss 53 networks. He could have got away with it too, if he hadn’t bragged about it on an online chat room.
4- Kevin Poulsen
This hacker had the ingenious idea to hack into the phone lines of a radio station and allowed himself to be the 102nd caller and win a Porsche. He broke into the phone systems as well, in order to reactivate old numbers. He was also able to hack into the federal investigation database and he was featured on the TV show called Unsolved Mysteries when his arrest had mysteriously vanished from the database. He is now a senior editor for Wired News.
3- Robert Tappan Morris
Robert Tappan Morris graduated from Cornell University and had a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University. Then, he decided to put his Ivy League education to use by setting out to hack the itnerent. This way, he created the well-known and infamous Morris worm.
It affected 6000 major Unix machines and it shut them down, causing estimated damages in the millions of dollars. The disc that he used to write his worm is currently displayed at the Boston Museum of Science and Morris is now a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
2- Gary McKinnon
Gary McKinnon was a system administrator who is known for the biggest military computer hack of all time. He has hacked into 97 United States military and NASA computers in 13 months, calling himself Solo.
1- Kevin Mitnick
This one does not like being called a hacker. He calls himself a security professional or a social engineer. He broke into the systems of Nokia, Fujitsu and Motorola and after having been arrested in 1995, he was sentenced for five years of incarceration. He is currently running his own computer security consultancy company.
Bottom Line
You will find a number of other hackers out there, but the above given list are those top 10 hackers who were caught when their fame got too big for their own good.
Note: If you know someone who should be in the list, please comment below.
