Top 5 Hackers

Top 5 Hackers

Jonathan James

Jonathan James on the Internet is called "c0mrade". What is his fame? He was convicted and sent to prison in the United States for hacking - all while he was still a minor. At the age of fifteen, he managed to enter some networks, including those belonging to Bernstein, Miami-Dade, the US Department of Defense and NASA.

Yes, James entered the NASA network and downloaded enough source code to understand how the ISS works. The total value of the assets downloaded was $ 1.7 million. To increase the insult to injury, NASA had to shut down their network for three full weeks, and they investigated the default, which requires 41,000 US dollars.

However, James's story has a tragic ending. In 2007, some high-profile companies became victims of a large number of malicious cyber attacks. Even if James denies any involvement, he is suspected and investigated. In 2008, James committed suicide, believing he would be convicted of a crime he did not commit.

Kevin Mitnick

Kevin Mitnick's journey as a computer hacker has been so interesting and convincing that the Justice Department has called him "the most wanted computer crime in American history." His story is so crazy; it is the basis of two characteristics of the film.

What did he do? A year after entering the digital equipment company's network services, he was released for three years of supervised release. However, close to the end of this period, he escaped a 2.5-year-old hacking madness, involving a violation of the national defence alert system and theft of corporate secrets.


Mitnick was eventually arrested and convicted, ending with a five-year sentence. After years of full service, he became a consultant and public speaker on computer security. He now runs Mitnick Safety Consulting LLC.

Albert Gonzalez

Albert Gonzalez has collected more than 1.7 million credit and ATM card numbers over a two-year period, paving the way for his Internet reputation. Yes. That's a little more than half the population of the United States.

Gonzalez began as a hacking group called ShadowCrew leader. The team will continue to steal 1.5 million credit card numbers and sell them online to make a profit. ShadowCrew also created fake passports, health insurance cards and identity theft of birth certificates, total theft of 4.3 million US dollars.


Until then, Gonzalez entered the TJX company and the Heartland payment system stored in the database of credit card numbers, a large amount of money will come. In 2010, Gonzalez was sentenced to 20 years in prison (2 years imprisonment for 20 years, while serving a sentence).

Kevin Poulsen

Kevin Poulsen, also known as "Dark Dante," earned his fifteen-minute reputation by using his knowledge of the intricate telephone system. On one occasion, he hacked a radio station phone line and fixed himself as the winning caller, won a brand new Porsche. According to the media, he was known as "Hannibal Lecturer in Computer Crime."

He then enters the FBI's demand list when he enters the federal system, stealing eavesdropping messages. Interestingly, he was later arrested in a supermarket and sentenced to 51 months in prison, as well as compensation of $ 56,000.


Like Kevin Mitnick, Poulsen changed his way after being released. He started working as a journalist and is now a senior editor of cable news. On one occasion, he even helped law enforcement agencies to identify 744 sex offenders on MySpace.

 Gary McKinnon

Gary McKinnon is known by his Internet Handbook, "Solo". Using this name, he coordinates what will become the biggest military hacker of all time. The allegations were that he had illegally acquired 97 computers belonging to the United States Armed Forces and the United States Space Agency during the 13-month period from February 2001 to March 2002.

McKinnon claims that he only searches for information related to free energy suppression and UFO activity masking. But according to the US authorities, he removed some key documents, making more than 300 computers inoperable, resulting in more than $ 700,000 in damages.


As a Scottish descent and operating in the UK, McKinnon was able to evade the US government for some time. As of today, he continues to combat extradition to the United States.