The Three Most Infamous Hackers

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» 23 May 2009

The Three Most Infamous Hackers

The dictionary features several meanings for the word "Hacker". One is quite constructive: a programming and software expert that offers solutions to problems using a computer. Another is more insidious: a person who gains unauthorized access to computers through vulnerabilities or malicious software and tampers with the data within the system.

In any case, here are some of the most infamous hackers in the history of computing. This list has been put up with the help of the National White Collar Crime Center, the Justice Department, Symantec, and many other technology advisors.

Fred Cohen: Back in 1983, Fred Cohen, a student with a Ph.D. at the University of Southern California, wrote a small application that served as an experiment to see if programs could invade PCs, spread from one computer to another, and make duplicates of themselves. Does any of that sound familiar?

The first virus—or at least the first one ever documented—was attached to a large, legitimate program installed into a computer via a floppy disk. At present, the arguable Father of the Modern Computer Virus currently runs his own computer security firm.

Kevin Mitnick: He was known as the most wanted computer criminal in United States history for good reason. He was a ubiquitous hacker that breached into computer systems at Fujitsu, Sun, Motorola, Novell, and many other firms and companies before he was eventually captured in 1995. He was incarcerated for a good four years before he was convicted and sentenced to 3 years and 10 months in prison with acknowledgment for the time he already served. He currently owns his own computer security firm, just like Fred Cohen.

Robert T. Morris: This graduate student from Cornell broadened the malware variants currently available in 1998 and unleashed the first well-known computer worm—a virus that multiplies and proliferates over the worldwide web. What he thought was a harmless experiment ended the way most harmless experiments ended in cinema: in the most terrible way possible.

Morris' invention became an uncontrollable storm of malware that caused tens of thousands of dollars in lost productiveness for each machine it infected. The promising programmer was eventually sentenced to three years worth of community service, probation, and a fine of $10,000 plus legal costs.

Eventually, Morris made a profitable startup that was ultimately bought out for $45 million by future online giant Yahoo. He is now a professor at M.I.T. at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

Some hackers may seem despicable, while others may look like modern-day Robin Hoods. Whatever your take on hackers may be, they're undoubtedly notorious celebrities in their own right.