five of the most infamous hackers and hacking collectives

8/13/2019 Five of the Most Infamous Hackers and Hacking Collectives

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5 of the Most Infamous Hackers and Hacking Collectives

Our world today is intrinsically connected to technologymore specifically, computers and computer

networks. Things we used to do that required manual manipulation or involved analog technologies only a

handful of years ago have now been transformed into completely automated processes involving high-speed

digital technologies and wireless data transmissions. Making coffee, washing clothes, driving cars, sending

messages, and even having phone conversations have been revolutionized by the growth of the digital age.

While these leaps in technological capabilities continue to make our lives easier, they have also opened up

entirely new playgrounds for fraud, vandalism, and other criminal activities, making IT services such asdisaster

recoveryand network security an absolute necessity for every modern business. And these digital criminals

hackers as we call themare stealthier than ever. Unfortunately, where holes exist in the security of a system,

opportunities lurk for individuals or groups to exploit them. Hackers and hacking collectives take advantage of

computer system or network weaknesses in the quest for money, fame, pandemonium, or a combination of al

three.

Below we examine five of the most infamous computer hackers and hacker groups, taking a look at their

chosen targets, the motivations behind their activities, and the fallout of their actions. In addition, we outline

several preventative measures that you can take in order to protect yourself from becoming a victim of

hacking and what to do if you suspect your computer or online accounts may have been hacked.

Chaos Computer Club

The Germany-based hacker group known as theChaos Computer Club (CCC)is the largest association of

hackers in Europe. Founded in 1981, the CCC is considered to be one of the first major hacking collectives

responsible for sparking the group hacking movement of the early 1980s.

The CCC first gained notoriety when they exposed security flaws in the German Bildschirmtext (often

abbreviated as Btx) computer network, which had failed to acknowledge any of the system security issues

brought to their attention by the CCC. The club was able to hack into the Btx network and transfer nearly
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135,000 Deutschmarks into their own account, which they publicly returned to the company the following

day.

The incident established the CCC as one of the first hacking collectives to focus on raising awareness of

potential security issues through well-publicized demonstrations. According to their website, the club is

dedicated to providing information about technical and societal issues, such as surveillance, privacy, freedom

of information, hacktivism, data security and many other interesting things around technology and hacking

issues.

Despite their seemingly philanthropic mission, the Chaos Computer Club has also been involved in some less-

than-altruistic hacking activities. The most notable occurred in 1989 when a group of German hackers

affiliated with the CCC was able to gain access to United States government computers and sell sensitive

information to the KGB. In 2008, the club was also responsible for stealing and distributing the fingerprints of

German Minister of the Interior, Wolfgang Schuble, through their quarterly magazine, Datenschleuder. The

prints were then used by readers to fool fingerprint readers and scanning devices throughout Germany.

Kevin Mitnick

Operating under the secretive code names of The Condorand The Darkside,Mitnick was at one point the

most wanted cyber criminal in the United States. Mitnick got his start in the hacking world in the late 1970swhen he and a group of other phone phreakswould regularly gain access to a telephone company's digital

central office switch, allowing them to make free phone calls, play pranks on unsuspecting people, and even

eavesdrop on private conversations.

Mitnicks aptitude for hacking lead him from phone phreaking to more complex and serious hacking missions,

paving the way for increased notoriety in the hacking world as well as multiple run-ins with the law. In the

early 1990s, Mitnick found himself a fugitive of the law, evading the FBI and continuing to hack various

computer systems, obtain sensitive documents and information, access private emails, and copy highly

valuable proprietary software. In 1995, after two and a half years on the run, Mitnick was finally apprehended

by authorities in Raleigh, North Carolina, after which he served five years in prison.

His ability to navigate and bypass extremely complex network security systems and gain access to sensitive

information and proprietary software earned Mitnick a lot of popularity among his fellow hackers, along with

multiple references in books, movies, video games, and other mediums. In 1996, Tsutomu Shimomura and

John Markoff published Takedown, which detailed the exploits and subsequent capture of Mitnick. The book

was then made into a movie titled Track Down. Today, Mitnick operates his own computer network security

consulting firm, Mitnick Security Consulting, as well as working as a network security consultant for KnowBe4.


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Anonymous

Formed in 2003, Anonymous is a loosely organized group of hackers who have orchestrated well-publicized

attacks on government, social, entertainment, and religious websites over the last several years. Starting with

relatively harmless raids on the popular image board site 4chan.org, the group continued to grow in both

popularity and participants, eventually launching attacks on the Church of Scientology (Project Chanology),rallying against the Australian government, PayPal, YouTube, and other web censorship and anti-piracy

initiatives (Operation Didgerdie, Operation Payback, Operation Avenge Assange, etc.), and protesting British

extradition and United States Immigration policies (Operation AntiSec).

What makes Anonymous unique from other hacking collectives is their strong appeal to those who feel

morally maligned by their government or those in positions of power. The group has been linked with attacks

against child pornography sites, tracking and exposing cyber criminals, and supporting free speech and digital

dissemination of information. The dealings of Anonymous have garnered so much attention from supporters,

dissenters, and the media in general that Timemagazine included the collective on their list ofThe Worlds

100 Most Influential Peoplein 2012.

Max Butler

According to CNBCs television seriesAmerican Greed, Max Iceman Butler was the don of the digital under

underworld. He's a computer genius and an accomplished hacker. Operating out of his San Francisco

apartment, Butler ran Carders Market, an online forum where hackers and other cyber-criminals could buy

and sell stolen credit card information. By the time he was arrested in 2007, Butler had amassed a collection

of nearly 2 million credit card numbers and $86 million in fraudulent charges. For his crimes, Butler was

sentenced to 13 years in prison, the longest sentence yet to be handed down for hacking-related crimes. Inaddition to being featured in a 2010 episode of American Greed, Butler was also the subject of Kevin Lee

Poulsens bookKingpin.

Milw0rm

In 1998, the computers of Indias primary nuclear research facility, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre

(BARC), were hacked by a group known as Milw0rm, with members operating out of New Zealand, the UK,

Russia, and the United States. The group of hacktivists had an anti-nuclear weapons agenda, and upon

gaining access to BARCs system, they went about erasing server data, stealing classified files, and leaving an

anti-nuclear message on the centers homepage. The BARC attack was reported by WiredNews and led many
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other groups and government agencies to beef up their online security in order to avoid a similar cyber

invasion.

However, just a month after the BARC attack, Milw0rm struck again, this time targeting the British hosting

company Easyspace. The group set about placing another anti-nuclear message on over 300 Easyspace-hosted

websites, prompting Wiredto dub the incident the largest mass hack ever undertaken.

How to Avoid Being Hacked

So how can you avoid becoming a victim of hackers and hacker groups like the ones mentioned above, and what should

you do if you think your information has been compromised? Here are a few dos and donts to help keep your

computer and online accounts more secure.

1. Dontshare your credit card security codes, PIN numbers, or online account passwords with anyone.2. Dontoffer up personally identifiable information on social networks like Facebook and Twitter

(birthday, address, phone number, childrens names, pets, etc.)

3. Doinvest inIT security servicessuch as firewall management, log management, network intrusionprevention, and vulnerability scans.

4. Dontopen suspicious-looking email messages. If you do happen to open a message that you thinkmight be malicious, report it to your email service provider immediately. Dontprovide the sender withany personal or financial information, ever!

5. Doopt for two-step verification when the service is offered. Especially for those people who accesstheir online accounts from multiple computers or devices, two-step verification is a great way to

provide an extra line of defense between your sensitive online information and those who wish to

exploit it.
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five of the most infamous hackers and hacking collectives

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