Cyber Crime’s Most (In)Famous

Some did it for kicks, some craved the fame, some thought they were making a
political statement while others obviously went for the money. Here’s a look at
some of cyber crime’s most infamous criminals and their hacking exploits.


There is a very thin line that divides cyber-pranksters from cyber-criminals. Some of the most notorious cyber crimes of the last few years have been attributed to youngsters, who perhaps innocuously thought they were playing a prank when they hacked into networks or created malicious code for viruses, malware, worms or Trojans. Maybe they didn’t have the intention of making a financial gain from their activities, nor did they aspire for celebrity status or they did it, purely for the heck of it and as a prank.
Did they just want to prove it to themselves? Whatever their motivation, there is a lot to learn about the psyche of a cyber criminal. Much information can be gathered by studying their profiles and understanding what they did. Without trying to glorify these deviants, they are admittedly above average intelligence. One might even say in some cases they have a gift. Most of them have a deep understanding of the human mind and how to tempt it. How they use their gifts is under question. They’re talented individuals with a tendency to walk on the wrong side of the law. Eventually many of the black-hatters do see the light and clean up their act, becoming consultants or working for big names in the tech industry. Here is a look at some of the most colourful cyber criminals that the world has known. But of course the real geniuses are those that have never got caught. Yet...


Mark Abene 
{Born 1972}
Born in New York, he had his first contact with computers at the age of 9. It turned out to be a proverbial case of love at first sight. He literally could not keep himself away from computers and he devoted himself to learning the few popular programming languages. In the mid 1980s, he came in contact with a group of teenaged hackers that went by the name of Legion of Doom. Lurking with them he further perfected his hacking techniques. When the group disintegrated due to internal dissension, Mark Abene shifted his loyalties to another group of local hackers, the Masters of Deception. He had keen interest in telecommunications, and when AT&T’s network crashed in January 15, 1990, US authorities held him and other members of Masters of Deception as being responsible. On January 24, 1990, Mark Abene’s house was searched and in December 1991, he was formally arrested. When he was released in November 1994, he had a hero’s welcome from large number of people who are interested in technology. Today he works as an independent consultant, advising corporations on matters related to cyber security.


Kevin Mitnick 
(Born 1963)
 At one point of time in his career, Kevin Mitnick enjoyed the unsavoury distinction of being the most wanted cyber criminal in America. Believe it or not, his tryst with crime started when he was only 12 years old, when he cracked the punch-card system used in Los Angles bus system to gain free rides in any bus in the greater LA area. In 1979, at the age of 16, he gained unauthorised access to the computer system of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), from where he copied some crucial software. For this crime, he was convicted and sentenced to 12 months in prison and three years of probation. But the punishment did not make him change his ways. After his release, he hacked into the systems of some schools in LA and into the one that was owned by Pacific Bell. When a warrant for his arrest was issued, he fled and became a fugitive for almost two and a half years. During his days as a fugitive, he gained further notoriety by gaining unauthorised access into many other computer systems. When he was apprehended in February 1995, many mobile phones, which he had cloned, were found with him. He was also found in possession of multiple false identities. In 1999, he was convicted and sentenced to four years of prison. These days he is running a cyber security company.


Adrian Lamo
 (Born 1981)
 Adrian Lamo has been making lot of news lately, primarily because of his ongoing tussle with the whistle blower web site WikiLeaks. Although he has taken a dip in the world of cyber crime his claim to fame is rather odd. Intelligence officer Bradley Manning had contacted Adrian Lamo over IM to brag about the fact that he was responsible for leaking thousands of documents to WikiLeaks. Lamo promptly tipped off the FBI with this information. Since then many in the hacker community have been bombarding Lamo with death threats for cooperating with the authorities, but there are also those who call him a national hero. Born in Boston, Lamo spent his early childhood in Arlington, Virginia, before moving to Bogotá, Colombia at the age of 10. Two years later when he came back to USA, he became obsessed with computers and software. He was barely out of his teens when he started performing authorised or unauthorised vulnerability assessment for several large and small business entities. However, most of his work was done for free. In February 2002 after breaking into The New York Times computer network, he added his name to the internal database of expert sources, and began using the paper’s LexisNexis account to conduct research on high-profile subjects. The newspaper filed a complaint and warrant for Lamo’s arrest was issued in August 2003. Later on he was convicted of compromising the security of The New York Times, Microsoft, Yahoo! and MCI WorldCom.

Chad Davis
 (Born 1981)
 The founding member of the globalHell syndicate of hackers, Chad Davis used to operate under the pseudonym, Mindphasr. He is suspected to have played a lead role in the hacking of the web sites of numerous businesses and government agencies. Two weeks after he vandalised the web site of the White House, in June 1999, the authorities searched his apartment. As Chad Davis was underage at that time, he could not be arrested; the cops only fined him $165 for a can of beer that was found in his refrigerator. Within days of the search, Chad Davis retaliated by hacking the home page of the US Army, where he posted the message, “globalHell will not die.” This time Chad was taken into custody and in 2001, and after he had pled guilty to the crime of hacking, he was sentenced to six months in prison. The judge also sentenced him to six months of probation, during which period he was ordered to stay away from computers.

Jeanson James Ancheta
 (Born 1985) 
Jeanson James Ancheta enjoys the notoriety of being the first person in the world to be convicted of controlling large numbers of hijacked computers or botnets. At one point of time he used to control more than half a million computers, which allowed him to orchestrate large-scale attacks. For this crime, he had to spend five years in jail. He was accused of making profit of more than $70,000 by installing adware on his hijacked computers or botnets. Born in USA, Ancheta attended the Downey High School in California until 2001, when he dropped out of school. After that he is known to have spent some time with the alternative program for students with academic or behavioural problems. He also worked at an internet cafe and from June 2004, he started his work with botnets.

Jan de Wit
 (Born 1981)
 Sort of a misfit on this list, this hacker is not nearly as much a computer genius as he is a shrewd observer of human nature. Almost ten years have passed since the famous Anna Kournikova worm spread round the globe. The virus tempted users with naked pictures of the tennis diva and instead they found themselves infected with a malicious email-aware worm once they downloaded the package. What’s interesting about this story is that the Netherlandsbased, Jan de Wit wasn’t a computer wizard; of course, he knew a little bit about coding and things like that, but the Anna Kournikova worm was made out of very basic form of Visual Basic Script (VBS). The worm was successful in wrecking havoc primarily because of its innovative socially viral strategy of reaching lot of users through user’s outlook address books. You see a message from a contact saying: “Hi: Check This!”, with what appears to be a picture file labelled “AnnaKournikova.jpg.vbs”. For his crime Jan de Wit was sentenced for 75 days in jail.

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