Top Most Notorious Hackers That The World Has Ever Seen

Ingenuity has always been an integral part of the humanity. From unprecedented manipulation of the natural limbs to jaw-breaking use of the brain. I mean you need to pay a visit to Albert Einstein! If he is dead, try Usain Bolt!!

A completely rare level of ingenuity is Hacking. Funny enough, Hackers have always been a integral part of the information world since the entry of computers (of course, arguably all giant computer companies have loads of them).

What most people actually don’t know is the amount of ISIS-class havocs wreaked by some of these guys’ antics. Their collateral damages sometimes ring into billions of hard earned dollars.

Today we will be rounding up the top eleven most notorious Hackers that the world has ever bred and what has made their ingenuity so infamous.

Let’s start digging… 

RYAN COLLINS

AGE: 37

What other way can we start our irresponsible tale than with the most irresponsible ingenuity so far. This guy just enjoyed wrecking havoc for fun. This dude successfully hacked into icloud, gmail as well as other airtight storage sites and leaked nude pictures of top celebrities without even thinking of making a dime from them. Just for the fun of it!

Ryan Collins, a resident of Pennysylvania when finally caught, admitted (in a widely broadcasted scandal known as ‘Celebgate’ or ‘The Flappening’) to using a phishing scheme to gain access to private photos and videos of top celebrities such as Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and various others and releasing them into top photo sharing and social media sites such as Reddit and  4-Chan.

The 37 year old graduate of James Madison University was lucky to get a reduced sentence of few months due to lack of evidence. After all, every smart guy covers his ass.

In case forget, its noteworthy to add that the bloke was just a chef when he was doing all these.

ADRIAN LAMO (THE HOMELESS HACKER)

AGE: 34

I just love this guy. Exactly like the hackers in the movies. He runs his ‘shit’ right under your noses.

Adrian Lamo got the nickname “homeless hacker” because of his transient lifestyle of using outdoor venues such as coffee shops and libraries for his dubious activities.

Irrespective of this extreme exposure, this guy won worldwide respect by successfully hacking into computer networks of Google, Yahoo! and even Microsoft. Nemesis finally caught up with him when he successfully gained entry into the New York Times and changed the contents of an article (slotting in his name as one of the expert sources).

Who once said that pride comes before a fall.

It took 15 months of thorough investigation to fish him out and land him a six-month house arrest as punishment (thanks to a well negotiated plea bargain).

But trust a natural mischief maker; he soon got himself into the books again in no time. This time in the government’s good books by hacking and revealing Chelsea Manning as the culprit behind the leaking of US Army documents to wikileaks. This got him a new nickname ‘Snitch’ among hackers.

KELVIN MITMICK

AGE : 51 

This guy was so good at what he was doing that the Judge in charge of his case (when arrested) ordered him to be put in solitary confinement because “...he has the capacity of starting a nuclear war - with just a phone!!”. Damn!!!

“The Darkside Hacker” as he was nicknamed started hacking at the age of 15. At this age, he could hack into Los Angeles City transportation network system and steal tickets. Then, he called it ‘social engineering’.

The social engineering became threatening when it graduated to wrecking networks of IT warlords such as Pacific bell, Nokia, Motorola and IBM.

He was arrested in 1995 but went back to hacking after serving 12 months in prison – this time, Hit and Run hacking. He was the most wanted computer criminal for 3 years and finally got imprisoned again in 1999.

Today, he works as a top security consultant for a major firm and has transformed to a responsible White hat. So much for a social engineer.

ASTRA

AGE: 59

An anonymous hacker who has not been publicly recognized till date- (maybe because the government may be using him for undercover activities). 

Based in Greece, thise dude is said to have hacked into the systems of a top aviation group – Dassault Group for a period of more than 5 years. During this period, he stole sensitive weapons technology information and sold them to competitors in different countries.

His costumer running into hundreds spanned across Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, South Africa and the Middle East with damages amounting into close to 500 million dollars.

Though his identity is still hidden, he is said to be 59-year old mathematician. He was apprehended in 2008.

OWEN THORN WALKER (AKILL)

AGE: 26

Another infant genius whole skills where unimaginable for a kid of his age. At 18, Owen was so good that he had successfully broken into 1.3 million computers and stole more than 20 million dollars.

Due to lack of finances, Owen Walker was home schooled. This gave him time to learn complex programming and encryption science. This, he used in creating and writing codes for an international hacker network that wrecked financial and security damages running into hundred millions of dollars.

Overall, he was said to have made only 32,000 dollars for all his troubles. When convicted in 2008, he was forced to cough out 11,000 dollars but escaped conviction because of his age. He now works for an online security company.

MAX RAY BUTLER

AGE: 50

Nicknamed ‘Iceman’, Butler was a computer security consultant who turned into one of humanity’s most notorious hackers.

Iceman digitally acquired about two million credit card numbers and stole over 86 million dollars fraudulently.

He was finally arrested in 2007 and sentenced to 13 years imprisonment.

Quite harsh right - considering what his more deadly colleagues had to face as punishments?

 Well, some of the monies he stole took a lifetime to save. I say, it serves  him right.

KEVIN POULSSEN (DARK DANTEN)

Our list can’t be complete without this funny teenager. His irk for mischief is repute as having  started from the womb. His own department was in the hacking of phone networks. 

He came into global limelight when he famously hacked into the lines of L.A. radio station KIIS FM in order to be the 102nd caller and as such, winning himself a Porshe. He went on the run went the FBI started looking for him (but later appeared on the show unsolved mysteries).

‘Coincidentally’, throughout the show, the television station call lines went dead.

He was finally caught and jailed for five years and banned from using the internet for another three years.

Today, he works as a journalist for Wired.

ALBERT GONZALEZ (KINGCHILLI)

AGE: 33 

 A real businessman-hacker who took made a career out of the venture and made sure he lived luxuriously on the output of the venture.

The 34 year old was into stealing and selling private financial devices. He even founded a website  (With about 4000 members) where members  could buy and sell stolen bank account numbers, passports, drivers’ licenses, social security cards, credit cards, health insurance cards and even fake birth certificates.  It is said that more than 170 million shady deals were made between just 2005 and 2007.

The Florida based hacker himself did not withhold when spending the money gotten from the venture either. He was known for always staying in high-class hotels and throwing expensive parties.

He was subsequently charged with theft of fifteen credit cards in New Jersey but avoided punishment by snitching on 19 of his crew members and using them as scapegoats. Gross right! He was that uncool!!

He returned to Miami, regrouped and stole 45 million more credit and debit card numbers before being finally arrested in May 2008. He won’t be out until 2025.

Personally, I think he should have gotten the capital punishment. Maybe that’s why I am not a lawyer after all.

VLADIMIN LEWIN

AGE: UNKNOWN

Sharing the same name as his badass president, this bloke was no less a badder ass. Another remarkable Russian genius who we thought could only be found in the movies. This guy successfully broke into Citibank computers and  rewired as much a 10 million dollars into his own account. All without using an internet!!!

 Ingenious right, but yes he did it from the comfort of his sitting room!!

Funny enough, all he had to do was to tap into the telecommunication system of wealthy costumers and listen to them as they rattle off their private account information.

When finally arrested, he confessed to stealing only about 3.7 million dollars out of which the government were only able to recover 400 thousand dollars. He was ordered to return 240,000 back to Citibank and imprisoned for 3 years.

GARRY MCKINNON (SOLO)

AGE: 46 

Another nasty thorn in the governments flesh. He derived joy in damaging sensitive government data and information.

Between 2001 and 2002, Gary Mckinnon hacked into nearly one hundred military servers and deleted sensitive data, software, and files. The government had to spend as much as seven hundred thousand dollars to recover the damages. He is famous for usually living a message at his wake ‘ Your security system is crap. I am Solo. I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels’ .

This guy fed on NASA files like local information on his hard drive. He even claims that he has evidence that NASA has been talking to aliens. Weird!!

McKinnon currently lives in Britain and is a  currently a white hat.

ANONYMOUS

AGE: VARIOUS

It is said that good always overcomes evil (if that is  always entirely true). There is no better way to end our creepy epistle than with the tale of some creepy good guys. Anonymous is an online hacking grouped that was formed from 4 Chan in 2003. 

At first, it was a platform where online members pulled pranks on each other but soon, it metamorphosed into an online justice system. They target whoever they think is the bad guys.

Notoriously, they have successfully hacked and brought down on several occasions; Church of Sciencetology, the KKK and even PayPal .

They also got involved with the case of Michael Brown, Tamar Rice and Charlie Hebdo; hacking and exposing criminating documents.

The group fractured into smaller groups in 2008 after its leader Hector Mansegur snitched on other members of the group to the FBI to save his skin. The  team nevertheless, group up on several occasions though to tackle some major cases of injustice; example the immigration enforcement bill SB 1070 case.

So afterall, Hacking may not always such a bad idea.

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