Kevin Poulsen

Kevin Poulsen, also known as “Dark Dante,” gained his fifteen minutes of fame by utilizing his intricate knowledge of telephone systems. At one point, he hacked a radio station’s phone lines and fixed himself as the winning caller, earning him a brand new Porsche. According to media, he was called the “Hannibal Lecter of computer crime.” He then earned his way onto the FBI’s wanted list when he hacked into federal systems and stole wiretap information. Funny enough, he was later captured in a supermarket and sentenced to 51 months in prison, as well paying $56,000 in restitution. Like Kevin Mitnick, Poulsen changed his ways after being released from prison. He began working as a journalist and is now a senior editor for Wired News. At one point, he even helped law enforcement to identify 744 sex offenders on MySpace.

Jonathan James

Jonathan James was known as “c0mrade” on the Internet. What is his ticket to fame? He was convicted and sent to prison for hacking in the United States–all while he was still a minor. At only fifteen years of age, he managed to hack into a number of networks, including those belonging to Bell South, Miami-Dade, the U.S. Department of Defense, and NASA.
Yes, James hacked into NASA’s network and downloaded enough source code to learn how the International Space Station worked. The total value of the downloaded assets equaled $1.7 million. To add insult to injury, NASA had to shut down their network for three whole weeks while they investigated the breach, which cost them $41,000.

Albert Gonzales

Albert Gonzalez, known online as CumbaJohnny, was the mastermind behind shadowcrew.com, a black market website for hackers to sell stolen credit card numbers, Social Security Numbers, passports, and just about any other type of information imaginable. But when he got arrested for credit card fraud in 2003, he switched sides and became the key informant for the government in "Operation: Firewall," a massive program designed to take down hackers. Thanks to Gonzalez's assistance, 28 hackers, scattered across eight states and six foreign countries, were indicted on charges of selling around 1.7 million credit card numbers. For his assistance, Gonzalez was immune from all charges and was offered a job at the Secret Service. With the Secret Service looking over his shoulder, Gonzalez developed a new online persona known as "soupnazi" to help snare hackers for the U.S. Government. But once he left the office for the day, soupnazi partnered with hacker Maksym Yastremski (aka Maksik), a Ukrainian whose sales of stolen credit card information were said to have reached $11 million between 2004 and 2006 alone. To get credit card numbers for Maksik to sell, soupnazi and his hacker friends began "wardriving" – driving around town with a laptop hooked up to a powerful antenna, looking for wireless network signals they could breach. From the parking lots of major stores like TJMaxx, Target, Barnes & Noble, and many others, they installed "packet sniffers," software that can sit on the server undetected and grab data, like every credit or debit card transaction, from the store's vulnerable computer network. The sniffer then sent the credit card information over the internet to one of Yastremski's PCs in Turkey, allowing them to collect thousands of valid credit card numbers. Meanwhile, two European cohorts hacked Heartland Payment Systems, one of the largest credit card payment processing companies in the world, and stole card information from an astonishing 130 million transactions. With the two operations combined, Gonzalez and Yastremski were sitting on a virtual goldmine. With an influx of cash, Gonzalez bought a brand new BMW, and blew thousands of dollars every weekend with his hacker friends on drinks, drugs, women, and swanky hotel suites. That year, he also threw himself a $75,000 birthday party. By this time, Gonzalez was no longer working for the Secret Service, who suspected he was up to no good but couldn't find any evidence. Gonzalez had taught the feds much of what they knew about hacking, so he also knew how to cover his tracks. Their suspicions were confirmed when Ukrainian authorities caught up with Gonzalez's partner, Yastremski. After searching through the files on Yastremski's seized computers, investigators found records of over 600 instant message conversations about acquiring stolen card numbers for sale. The IM name Yastremski was talking to was registered to the email address soupnazi@efnet.ru. Gonzalez and 10 others were indicted in federal court in August 2008. Gonzalez pleaded guilty to all charges and, in March 2010, was sentenced to 20 years in prison. It's been estimated that the companies hit by soupnazi and his crew have spent more than $400 million to cover the damages done by these 11 men and their 11 computers.

Jeanson James Ancheta

Just because you're using the mouse and typing on the keyboard doesn't mean you have complete control over your computer. If you're connected to the internet, your PC could be a "zombie," an unwilling member of a "botnet." A botnet is a large network of computers that have been infected with the same virus that will force them to perform some function for the "bot herder," the person who created and controls this illegal network of PCs. Usually, the herder will have your PC send out a few spam emails without your knowledge, or it could become part of an army of computers repeatedly contacting a website, forcing the site to shut down, in what is known as a "Denial-of-Service" (DoS) attack. Because DoS attacks are automated, they can often go on as long as the hacker controlling it would like, opening up the perfect opportunity for extortion (Pay up or the DoS will continue). For 20-year-old high school dropout Jeanson James Ancheta, creating botnets became easy thanks to software he discovered online. As he continually expanded his army, he set up a website where he rented his zombies to spammers or hackers, complete with price ranges and recommendations for the number of zombies needed to complete the dirty job at hand. At one time during the course of his 14 month crime spree, it's estimated that Ancheta had over 500,000 computers at his disposal, some of which were owned by the U.S. Navy and the Department of Defense. Business was good, as Ancheta was able to buy a used BMW, spent about $600 a week on clothes and car parts, and had around $60,000 in cash at his disposal. But the fun ended when Ancheta became the first person to be indicted for creating a botnet after getting caught as part of the FBI's "Operation: Bot Roast," a nationwide push to bring down bot herders. In 2006, he pleaded guilty to four felony charges and was sentenced to 57 months in prison, forced to give up his car and the $60,000 in cash, and to pay restitution of $15,000 for infecting federally owned computers.

Kevin Mitnick

Using the alias "Condor," Kevin Mitnick's first big hack was a Department of Defense computer, which he gained access to when he was only 16 years old. His most famous crime in his younger days was stealing $1 million worth of software from computer company Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). So when the FBI began investigating him in connection with a hack of the California Department of Motor Vehicles in 1992, he was determined not to get caught again and made a run for it. While a fugitive from the law, Mitnick continued to use a laptop and cell phone to break into computer networks and telephone systems across the country, stealing software, files, access codes, and anything else he could get his hands on, including some 20,000 credit card numbers. After evading capture for over two years, the FBI tracked Mitnick to an apartment in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he was arrested on February 15, 1995. Thanks to a plea agreement, Mitnick spent five and a half years in prison. However, eight months of that time was in solitary confinement after federal prosecutors convinced the judge of the ridiculous notion that Mitnick could launch nuclear warheads by simply whistling the proper tones into a telephone receiver. Since his release, Mitnick has become a well known speaker at hacking and security conferences, as well as the head of his own company, Mitnick Security Consulting.