Early 1990s
Kevin Mitnick, often incorrectly called by many as god of hackers, broke into
the computer systems of theworld’s top technology and
telecommunicati ons
companies Nokia, Fujitsu, Motorola, and Sun Microsystems.
He was arrested by
the FBI in 1995, but later released on parole in 2000. He never termed his
activity hacking, instead he called it social engineering.
November 2002
Englishman Gary McKinnon was arrested in November 2002 following an accusation that he hacked into more than 90 US military computer systems in
the UK. He is currently undergoing trial in a
British court for a “fast-track extradition” to
the US where he is a wanted man.
1995
Russian computer geek Vladimir Levin effected what can easily be called The
Italian Job online – he was the first person to hack into a bank to
extract money. Early 1995, he hacked into
Citibank and robbed $10 million. Interpol
arrested him in the UK in 1995,after he had transferred money
to his accounts in the US, Finland, Holland,
Germany and Israel.
1990
When a Los Angeles area radio station announced a contest that awarded a Porsche 944S2 for the 102nd caller, Kevin Poulsen took control
of the entire city’s telephone network, ensured he is the 102nd caller, and took
away the Porsche beauty. He was arrested later that year and sentenced to
three years in prison. He is currently a senior editor at Wired News.
1983
Kevin Poulsen again. A little-known incident when Poulsen, then just a student,
hacked into Arpanet, the precursor to the Internet was hacked into. Arpanet was
a global network of computers, and Poulsen took advantage of a
loophole in its
architecture to gain temporary control of the US-wide network.
1996
US hacker Timothy Lloyd planted six lines of malicious software
code in the computer network of Omega
Engineering which was a prime supplier of components for NASA and the US Navy. The code allowed a “logic bomb” to
explode that deleted software running
Omega’s manufacturing
operations. Omega lost $10 million due to the attack.
1988
Twenty-three-year-old Cornell University graduate Robert Morris unleashed the
first Internet worm on to the world. Morris released 99 lines of
code to the internet as an experiment, but
realised that his program infected
machines as it went along. Computers crashed across the US and elsewhere. He
was arrested and sentenced in 1990.
1999
The Melissa virus was the first of its kind to wreak damage on a
global scale. Written by David Smith (then 30), Melissa spread to more than 300
companies across the world completely
destroying their computer networks. Damages reported amounted to nearly $400 million. Smith was arrested and
sentenced to five years in prison.
2000
MafiaBoy, whose real identity has been kept under wraps because
he is a minor, hacked into some of the largest sites in the world, including eBay,
Amazon and Yahoo between February 6 and Valentine’s Day in 2000. He gained
access to 75 computers in 52 networks, and ordered a Denial of Service attack on them. He was arrested in 2000.
1993
They called themselves Masters of
Deception, targeting US phone systems. The
group hacked into the National Security Agency, AT&T, and Bank of America. It
created a system that let them bypass long-distance phone call
systems, and gain access to the pbx of major carriers.
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