Today we are used to hearing about cyber attacks and hackers, however, in the 90s these cybercriminals were not so many and their tracking was more complicated. Kevin Mitnick was one of the most prominent hackers of his time and considered by many to be the most wanted in the world during this stage.
As confirmed by The New York Times, Mitnick passed away last sunday at the age of 59 due to pancreatic cancer that he suffered Now, the impact and recognition that this computer expert had has been diluted a lot, but during the 90s he was a star in cybercrime.
Mitnick aka the Condorbegan to gain popularity as a result of the robo of more than 20,000 thousand data files and credit card numbers of users in the United States. For years, he accessed with impunity different computer systems of various institutions, both corporate, government and even educationalIt’s like universities, relying largely on social engineering techniques.
All these ‘feats’, among which the attacks on Motorola or Nokia stand outled researchers to name it as “World’s Most Wanted” Hacker. However, in 1995 the authorities managed to arrest himand where it was declared guilty of computer fraud and sentenced to 46 months in prison or what is the same to almost four years in jail.
The truth is that the trial was somewhat controversial, and as he himself collected in his published memoirs ‘Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker’, Mitnick questioned many of the accusations dropping that not all were true. In turn, groups of other hackers began hack and block web pages in protest mode, The New York Times website being one of the affected targets.
After his release from prison, during the following three years he was prohibited from using a computer or mobile phone without the permission of his officer of probation. This computer expert learned his lesson and as he acknowledged throughout the rest of his life, what he did “was immoral, it was wrong and it negatively affected many companies.”
In fact, to correct your mistakes and not waste your talent and computer knowledge, Mitnick went on to be a computer security consultanteven reaching work for the CIA and over the years he ended up creating his own cybersecurity company called Mitnick Security Consulting.
