Top 28 Famous Hackers and their Hacking Style

Hacking is a process in which an individual gets unauthorized access to a system and network only to exploit its vulnerabilities. The individual behind the screen in this process is a hacker. While there are many varieties under this category like white hat hackers and black hat hackers, they all are capable of bringing down organizations.

This has become a common threat to the industry with companies paying trillions of dollars every year for the damage. And this is not just for large multinational companies but also for small startups. It will be a mistake to say that hackers cannot get into government agencies or military bases. Hackers are everywhere, tapping into our vulnerabilities.

This being said, there are many hackers in the world who are famous for bringing down even the most secured networks and systems. One similarity among them is their interest in hacking from a very early age. We will now take a look at some of those hackers, working independently or in a group, and their style of following the process.

Famous Hackers

1. Kevin Mitnick

A famous American hacker who began his career in 1981. Though he first came into notice for stealing computer manuals from Pacific Bell. Next year he managed to break into North American Defense Command, inspiring the film War Games. Another major event by him was hacking Digital Equipment Corporations in 1989.

This crime led to his arrest and eventual imprisonment. He was a risk-taker who liked thrill, leading to him hacking Pacific Bell’s voicemail systems just to show his ability. Reports suggest that he never misused any data of the organizations. He became a white hacker and even launched “Mitnick’s Absolute Zero Day Exploit Exchange in 2014.

2. Anonymous

It is a group of hackers that came to light in 2003 with 4chan message boards in an unnamed forum. They believe in social justice and thus target organizations where they can highlight their ideology.

One of their major breakouts was with the Church of Scientology in 2008, where they disabled their website. Many members of the group are under custody but most of them are still anonymous.

3. Adrian Lamo

He began his career when he was just 20 years old in 2001. One of his very first attempts was changing an article on yahoo using an unprotected content management tool. He was popular for hacking and then updating about it to the press and his victims.

The breaking point for him was when he broke into The New York Times’ intranet in 2002. He took things far by adding himself to the list of expert sources and getting information on high-profile public figures. He has been famous as “The Homeless Hacker” because of no fixed address.

4. Albert Gonzalez

He was a computer kid since high school and led a group of computer nerds at Miami high school. Shadowcrew.com was the website from where he started taking up hacking projects. But at 22, New York police arrested him for debit card theft. But being young, he chose to become an informant for government to indict Shadowcrew members.

He continued with his practice by stealing more than 180 million payment card accounts from top companies. One of his known incidents was hacking the credit information of TJX using SQL injections. The amount involved in this theft was $256 million from TJX alone.

5. Matthew Bevan and Richard Pryce

This team of British hackers is known for breaking into Griffiss Air Force Base and the Korean Atomic Research Institute. This notorious pair almost led to a third World War by mixing KARI research onto the American military. They tried to run away by saying that they did it to prove a UFO conspiracy theory.

6. Jeanson James Ancheta

His hacking style was limited to credit card data or crashing networks. His attention was towards the ability of bots in controlling computer systems. And this curiosity led to him hacking 400,00 computers in 2005 using large-scale botnets. He was caught soon enough and was sent to prison for 57 months.

7. Michael Calce

He began his practice by learning how to hack university networks at the age of 15. He became a pro at using denial of service attacks and bought down Yahoo, Dell, eBay, CNN, and Amazon. Their websites became static, leading to a ruckus in the cybercrime investors’ office. The government became more strict after this incident as top companies were bought down by a teenager.

8. Kevin Poulsen

Like other famous hackers, he began hacking at the age of 17 In 1983 by taking over the ARPANET network. The authorities let him go with a warning because of his age but it did not stop him.

He kept hacking government agencies and leaking confidential information like about the president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos. The police found him in 1990 and made him a white hacker. He writes about cybersecurity and web-related socio-political causes. He was also one of the open-source software SecureDrop.

9. Jonathan James

He took inspiration to hack from a book – The Cuckoo’s Egg and made his first attempt to get into the United States Department of Defense. He got access to over 3,000 messages from government employees, passwords, and other information.

Jonathan was soon under police custody and served for approx 6 years. He committed suicide due to a false accusation against him regarding TJX 2007 attack.

10. ASTRA

No one really knows the name of the hacker except that he was a 58-year-old Greek mathematician in 2008. Many claim that he hacked the Dassault group several times for a long time. A weapons technology software by the company was sold to 250 individuals by ASTRA. The organization had to bear $360 million in damages.

11. Julian Assange

Wikileaks, a common information leaking platform was his creation. He began working as a hacker at the age of 16 and took over the network of many organizations. The US security is behind him for all the charges against him.

12. Gary McKinnon

He is famous for undertaking one of the biggest military computer hack attacks in 2002. He gained access to NASA’s and US Army’s computers and erased many important files. Because he is a UK citizen, he did not face very severe punishment.

13. Loyd Blankenship

He was a part of many hacking groups since the 1970s and was an active part of their missions. He wrote several articles about ethical guidelines that hackers need to follow and was last seen working at McAfee.

14. Robert Tappan Morris

Morris worm, a well-known computer worm, is his creation. His intention was to test the size of the internet and nothing unethical. But his invention was problematic leading to him serving 3 years on probation. He was last known for teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

15. Owen Thor Walker

He was homeschooled which gave him plenty of time to learn encryption and programming. At 17, he began stealing and even led an international hacker network and stole $20 million. Next year, police arrested him for the activities but with less charge as he only wrote codes. He is now an advisor for cybersecurity in companies.

16. Vladimir Levin

Many refer to him as a traditional hacker who used telecommunications systems to steal money. He overheard many conversations to get passwords and usernames and transferred a portion of $10.7M to his bank account. These users were from Citibank accounts who managed to get back only $400,000 from Levin’s theft.

17. Syrian Electronic Army

This group came to light in 2011 under the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. They are known for attacking many high-profile organizations using malware, phishing, and Dos attacks. They were less active in the initial years but in 2013 they made several news headlines.

18. Lizard Squad

This group of black hat hackers is famous for bringing down PlayStation and Xbox gaming networks on Christmas Day. They use denial of service attacks to target people. They even sell out their services for the same for good money. These individuals even make false claims of taking down Tinder, Facebook, and Instagram.

19. Guccifer 2.0

Again an unknown identity that hacked Democratic National Convention’s network in 2016. Many documents from the network became available online. This was the only time when this group was seen. Many thought them to be Russian but they claim to b Romanian.

20. Elliott Gunton

He entered the world of cybercrime when he was just 16. TalkTalk, a telecommunication firm was his first target as he hacked their server. He was caught but being a juvenile did not face any major punishment. This made him more daring and now he does everything from stealing data, hacking accounts to dealing in cryptocurrency. This 19-year-old is famous in the UK for all sorts of unethical practices online.

21. Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev

Bogachev is known for using ransomware to spread infections in computers. Like others, he developed an early interest in the field of hacking but only for unethical reasons. His regular hacking led to him stealing over $100 million in damages. The Russian government is continuously tracking him to ensure that there are no possible meddles with international affairs.

22. The Equation Group & The Shadow Brokers

This group of hackers has worked for the US’s National Security Agency since 2001. But their existence was kept secret for a long time before other agencies managed to track them down in 2015. EquationDrug and GrayFish are two malware that led to the discovery of this group. Shadow Broker similarly came to light in 2016 and works for the same reasons.

23. Bureau 121

This group works for the North Korean government, as their hacking branch. They are famous for hacking multiple high-profile accounts to help the state stay safe and grow. Many believe the Wannacry ransomware attack was led by this group, infecting 300,000 NSA devices. Another claim is that they were behind the data leak at Sony Pictures in 2014, leaking countless personal emails and details to the public.

24. Fancy Bear

This group of hackers seems to hold a prejudice against the government. They made the headlines in 2008 by hacking the Georgian government’s server right before the Russian army invaded the country. And after this, many such incidents came to light which involved many state governments and officials. They are even famous for manipulating democracy in German, French, and Ukrainian elections.

25. Alexsey Belan

This 29-year-old hacker came under the public radar a long time after he began hacking. He was famous for working under the moniker M4G, a hacker community. He then began consulting other hackers about stealing data and how to exploit it. By 2012, the government went after him for all his criminal activities.

26. Unit 8200

This branch comes under the cyber intelligence unit of Israel’s government. They are known to hack into public service and counter-terrorism activity. The unusual part of them is that they have more women members than men. They work for international security using efficient malware and then exploiting those opportunities.

27. PLA Unit 61398

It is the hacking unit of the Chinese government famous for Operation Shady RAT. This operation led to them stealing data from at least 70 global companies and agencies in 2006. They are known for hacking into government organizations and other top-level agencies.

28. Machete

It is an independent group of hackers who are famous for hacking GBs worth of data in the past. But they did not last in the industry for very long due to independence. If only any large organization sponsored them, they would still be in the market.

Conclusion

These were some of the most prominent hackers that the world has seen. The list can keep going on if you start listing them according to the money they stole or the country they function in. The bottom line is that they are only growing.

The government has indeed made several regulations to control this practice unethically, the cases don’t seem to go down. Knowing about what they do and how they do it seems beneficial to avoid future threats as of now.