The pranks of the most famous hackers in the world.

History computersAlthough brief, it spans a few decades and from the early 70s to today the hacking has been one of its most controversial, unknown and, at the same time, surprising chapters of this story, where the figure of the hacker It's essential. This exciting chapter features a series of the best hackers in the world that we will try to present below.

If you are curious about the subject, continue reading, we assure you that, although in some cases it looks like a movie, the information that we show you below is real, or at least it is “the official version of events ”.

But what is a hacker?

A possible definition of what a "hacker" is could be that of: an individual who, thanks to his advanced knowledge on the subject and the vulnerability in the security of a computer or communication system; manages to access the information it contains, usually in an unauthorized manner, motivated by various reasons.

Next we will show you the best known of them.

Five most famous hackers in the world

Kevin Mitnick

He is probably one of the best hackers in the world. Known for his eccentric behavior; At the time of his arrest in 1995, he declared that it was enough for him to whistle through a public telephone booth to start a nuclear war. From a very young age he began to practice hacking. At the age of 12 he was able to forge bus tickets to travel around his city for free.

This American, known as "The Condor" (El Condor), was the author of several cybercrime during the 80s and early 90s. An example of this was unauthorized access to Nokia and Motorola systems to obtain secret information from these corporations.

It was then that the US Department of Justice called him the most wanted computer criminal in the history of that country. He would be finally sentenced to 5 years in prison, of which he spent 8 months in total isolation. In 2002 he founded his own computer security company "Mitnick Security". Today he is an important and wealthy businessman.

Kevin Poulsen

In 1990, he infiltrated a contest on a radio program on the KIIS-FM network in Los Angeles, hacking the calls in order to win the prize: a Porsche 944 S2. known as "Dark Dante" (Black Dante); he would go underground after the FBI began to go after him due to his increased reputation in the world.

Arrested in 1991 for attacking one of the FBI databases. Later, he was found guilty of seven counts of mail, electronic and computer fraud, money laundering and a long list. Although with all this Poulsen would carve out a future. In 2006 he worked with the police helping identify 744 pedophiles on MySpace. He currently works as a senior editor at "Wired" magazine.

Adrian lamo

He gained his reputation after infiltrating the computer networks of Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and from the newspaper "The New York Times" before being caught in 2003. He was known by his investigators as the “Homeless Hacker” for their habit of making their irruptions from cafeterias and libraries with Internet access.

He was able, a year before his arrest, to gain access to the confidential information of people who had written for the famous New York newspaper. After an investigation that lasted 15 months, the police finally detained him in the city of California. Soon he negotiated an agreement with the prosecution and thanks to this he obtained only six months of house arrest, thus avoiding going to prison.

He was later accused of using a firearm against his partner; would be admitted to a psychiatric hospital due to another unrelated incident and was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. His reputation within the union suffered when Lamo reported Chelsea Manning to authorities after he leaked hundreds of thousands of US government documents. His nickname since then in the community hacker Was the snitch (snitch).

Albert Gonzalez

Accused of planning and carrying out, along with other hackers, the theft of more than 170 million credit card numbers used on the Internet and their subsequent sale; as well as the hacking of ATMs between 2005 and 2007, considered the largest fraud of this type in history. Positioning him as one of the best hackers in the world.

González and his team used SQL and a sniffer to open back doors in various corporate systems to launch packet sniffing attacks, such as ARP Spoofing, which allowed data to be stolen from the internal corporate networks of major companies. Following his arrest in 2008, González was sentenced to 20 years in prison and also fined $ 2,8 million. He is currently serving a sentence.

Astra

He was one of the best hackers in the world; considered by many as the most dangerous in history due to hacking and infiltrating the database of the French company "Dassault Group" for about 5 years (between 2002 and 2008); The objective was to obtain technological information on weapons, such as aircraft for military use, subsequently selling it to more than 250 people in countries such as Brazil, South Africa, Italy or Germany, in this way he obtained a juicy monetary benefit.

According to the injured company, its losses regarding this theft of information would be around 360 million dollars. Astra was captured in Athens in January 2008 and sentenced to six years in prison. Although his true identity still remains a mystery, it is known that he is a mathematician, of Greek nationality, and is currently in his 60s.

This list could be different depending on the expert in the matter that is asked, but here are some of the most famous hackers considered by many, since without a doubt the number of these cybercriminals it is very high and it does not stop increasing.

How to hack a Facebook profile

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How many hackers are there?

Quantifying the hackers that have existed throughout the history of hacking is a truly complex task given the little information that comes to light about them, being the mystery that surrounds them one of its main characteristics.

These individuals, although in most cases they move in search of financial gain, some follow iron principles in the purest chivalric style. This last point is what makes them compensate for the rest.

For some, the best hackers in the world are heroes, for other villains, since sometimes their morality is changing and in some cases non-existent; What is clear is that the figure of the hacker has become something typical of our time and is already part of the collective imagination of this technological age as if it were idealized pirates who, instead of sailing the seas, navigate the network in search of their victims, sometimes to do justice or support a collective cause, other times just to obtain their own benefit following dark interests.

WWW a repository of information.

La World Wide Web It is today the largest and most complex information storage center that humanity has ever had, considered by many as a safe place, it becomes a mere playground with the knowledge of a computer genius thanks the use of the appropriate software to gain access to the desired information. Out of curiosity, they could be entering your system right now and you may never be aware of it.