Home
News
Reviews
- Consumer
- SMB
Resources
Tools
- RAID Calculator
Trivia

Search

Home
News
Reviews
- Consumer
- SMB
Resources
Tools
- RAID Calculator
Trivia

Home Trivia Trivia: Who Was The First Hacker To Make The FBI’s Most Wanted...

Trivia: Who Was The First Hacker To Make The FBI’s Most Wanted List?

By

-

June 18, 2024

TRIVIA

Who Was The First Hacker To Make The FBI's Most Wanted List?

Kevin Mitnick can make a very strong argument that he deserves the title of the most famous hacker in computer history. Back in 1995, he received the dubious honor of becoming the first hacker to make the FBI's Most Wanted List. He started hacking in 1979, at the age of 16. As well as being technically adept, Mitnick was a gifted exponent of social engineering. He would ring victims and pose as a representative of all manner of technical or official organizations, or as a stressed colleague or a worried customer. He had sufficient knowledge and confidence to be able to call up system engineers and other administrative personnel and trick them into handing over passwords and other actionable intelligence. Eventually, he was forced to go on the run. He was captured two and a half years later and served a five-year prison term. In a classic poacher-turned-gamekeeper move, he now runs his Mitnick Security Consulting LLC, a cybersecurity company. Robert Morris wrote the infamous Morris Worm that brought a large part of the internet to its knees in 1988. He says he didn't write it to be malicious. A bug in its replication algorithm was to blame for the network stress that saw approximately 10% of the internet struggle to cope with the traffic generated by the worm. Although it brought Morris the first felony conviction in the US under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, he later became a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Kevin Poulsen wanted to win the big prize in a contest held by KIIS-FM radio. It was a Porsche 944 S2 and it was going to go to the 102nd caller to the station. He had a history of hacking into phone systems so it was trivial for Poulsen to commandeer all the telephone lines to the station to ensure he'd be the 102nd caller and get the prize. Sadly for him, the FBI took an interest. So, just like Mitnick, he had to go on the run. And just like Mitnick, he was sentenced to five years. On the back of his notoriety, Poulsen later became a technology journalist. Tsutomu Shimomura isn't a black-hat hacker at all. He is the cybersecurity expert that helped the FBI to eventually catch Kevin Mitnick. Not all hackers are bad!

Previous articleDiskashur M2 Secure SSD Review: IP68, FIPS 140-2 Level 3 (soon) and a Good Performer

Next articleNakivo Introduces Backup to Amazon S3 in Backup & Replication v9.4

Dave McKay has over 30 years of experience in the IT industry. He has been a freelance programmer, the manager of an international software development team, an IT services project manager, and a Data Protection Officer. He is now a technology journalist and independent Data Protection and Compliance consultant.

RELATED ARTICLES MORE FROM AUTHOR

Trivia: What Was the Biggest Data Breach of the Past Ten Years?

Trivia: Which Cyber Attacks Use SMS Text Messages to Dupe the Victim?

Trivia: In Cyber Security, What is an APT?

ITEnterpriser Newsletter

Subscribe to stay updated with the latest news on data storage, network security, and surveillance.

Latest posts

Small business owner reviewing security checklist.

A Practical Guide to Small Business Network Security in 2025

ItEnterpriser - August 17, 2025

This article provides a clear roadmap for implementing crucial cybersecurity measures to safeguard your company's digital assets.

What is BTRFS file system linux kernal

What is Btrfs? The Better (than most) File System

Jon L. Jacobi - August 14, 2025

Btrfs may be a "better" file system next to everything except ZFS, but what Btr actually stands for is not "better", or "butter", but...

Mac floppy disks

A Brief History of the Floppy Disk

Jon L. Jacobi - August 14, 2025

Ah, the floppy disk. How I miss thee. How I don't. There was a certain tactile pleasure to inserting you into your drive, and...

hard drive showing platter and read write headread-write-head

How to Install ZFS and Create a ZFS Pool on Ubuntu

Dave McKay - August 14, 2025

ZFS is a stable, robust, and fault-tolerant file system with built-in RAID-like properties and drive pools. We show you how to create a ZFS...

UnRAID array with parity and caching drives

What is UnRAID? Outstanding Capacity with Parity

Jon L. Jacobi - August 14, 2025

There are a number of NAS operating systems out there, including several based on the BSD (Berkeley System Development) operating system. Most are proprietary...

ABOUT US

ITEnterpriser is an independent online authority in the world of data storage, network security, and surveillance in both enterprise and consumer sectors.

FOLLOW US

About
Contact
Ethics
Sponsorship
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
Subscribe

© 2020 ITEnterpriser, LLC. All rights reserved.