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With cybercrime on the rise governments around the world have seriously stepped up their
digital law enforcement efforts, often to great success.
While most hackers nowadays are easily caught and punished, others have evaded law enforcement
for years, while others still were hacking legends in their day and practically barred
from ever touching a computer again.
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Infographics Show- today we're taking a look
at hackers governments around the world fear.
Kevin Mitnick
Once the most wanted hacker in the world, Kevin Mitnick began his criminal career as
a young teenager, when in 1976 at 16 years old he broke into Digital Equipment Corporation's
computer network and copied their software, then in 1981 he stole computer manuals from
Pacific Bell.
A year later he was reported to have hacked into the US's early warning system at North
American Defense Command, the story inspiring the 1983 film “War Games”- however later
in life Mitnick would go on to deny the story as ridiculous.
Mitnick finally made a name for himself after being released from jail in 1989 and put on
3 years of supervised release.
Towards the end of his parole, Mitnick hacked into Pacific Bell voice mail computers and
a warrant was immediately put out for his arrest, prompting Mitnick to flee and go into
hiding.
For two and a half years Mitnick was a fugitive, but continued his hacking spree and used cloned
cell phones to hide his location while copying proprietary software from some of the nation's
largest cell phone and computer companies.
He also intercepted and stole computer passwords, altered computer networks for companies around
the nation, and broke into and read thousands of private e-mails.
The FBI caught up with Mitnick on February 15th, 1995 at his apartment in Raleigh, North
Carolina, finding him with more than 100 clone cell phones, cell phone codes and multiple
fake id's.
Charged with 14 counts of wire fraud, 8 counts of possession of unauthorized access devices,
interception of wire or electronic communications, unauthorized access to a federal computer,
and causing damage to a computer, Mitnick accepted a plea agreement and was sentenced
to 46 months in prison plus 22 extra months for violating the terms of his 1989 supervised
release.
Mitnick would go on to serve most of his prison time in solitary confinement due to law enforcement
officials convincing a judge that Mitnick could start a nuclear war by dialing into
the NORAD modem via a payphone from prison and communicate to it by whistling.
A ridiculous claim no doubt, but to a less than tech-savy 1990's America, a valid fear.
Released in January of 2000, Mitnick would go on to form his own security consulting
company and has collaborated many times with the FBI.
However given his massive skillset there's little doubt that the government keeps a very
close eye on Mitnick to this day.
Anonymous
The world's largest group of hacktivists, Anonymous is a loose collective of hackers
from around the world.
Portrayed as modern day digital vigilantes, Anonymous has no leadership, no centralized
command structure, and no shared goals or aims, making it a difficult organization for
law enforcement to handle.
Anon's roots are in the early days of the internet, when groups of people would flock
to image-based bulletin boards such as 4chan to post images and swap stories.
Getting their name from the anonymity that came from posting without a username, the
group was initially nothing more than a large collection of pranksters known for hacking
into office networks and doing things like sending black faxes- faxes that used up all
of a fax machine's black ink to create a solid black fax.
Over the years though Anonymous would gain in momentum and started shifting it's aim
to bigger targets- gaining prominence with their Project Chanology, a raid on the Church
of Scientology which they saw as exploiting people and stifling free speech.
This garnered Anonymous many fans, as for years the Church of Scientology had been slowly
exposed as being corrupt and exploitative to a criminal degree, destroying people's
lives and ripping families apart while turning its members into cult drones.
The hacktivist group would resurface in force in their defense of Wikileaks after the US
government took action against the foundation for the posting of hundreds of thousands of
classified documents.
Once more they appeared to be the vigilantes, fighting against Big Brother for the common
man.
Yet those same documents Anonymous was trying to protect led to the deaths of dozens of
Afghan collaborators when Taliban leaders scoured the leaked documents for names, and
caused dozens of international diplomatic crises.
Worst of all, the same organization they fought so hard to protect would in turn end up aiding
the Russian government in directly influencing the 2016 American election- firmly going against
Anonymous' alleged democratic values.
However noble Anonymous' actions have been portrayed at times, there exists a very dark
side to the group, with just as many- if not more- outright malicious deeds to their credit
as there are good.
After their raid on scientology, Anonymous then gathered together to flood the forums
of the epilepsy foundation with flashing images.
They also routinely engaged in disseminating revenge porn from spurned men by hacking into
the social media accounts of women and posting graphic, personal images for public view,
while often sending them to everyone on that person's account.
Their harassment has also extended into the real world with threatening voicemails sent
to victims.
Anonymous is both everything that's right, and everything that's wrong with the internet.
Hiding behind their anonymity they may at times be a tool to fight against corruption,
but the very next day may well be ruining the reputations of innocent people and publicly
humiliating them “just for the lulz”.
As best described by a former member, Anonymous are typically “young, impulsive, and naïve
with computer talents that give them far more power than they are responsible to wield”,
making grandiose statements of purpose that sound cool, but doing things that often fall
far short of their stated ideals.
ASTRA
For years a hacker known only by his online monicker of 'ASTRA' routinely penetrated the
systems of France's Dassault Group, a major French defense firm specializing in aviation.
Able to penetrate into extremely sensitive digital networks, a multi-government effort
finally brought the hacker to justice in 2008, revealing him to be a 58 year old Greek mathematician.
After five years of hacking into Dassault Group's networks, ASTRA had caused 361 million
dollars worth of damage to the company and sold sensitive data on everything from avionics
to weapon systems to 250 different buyers across the internet.
Details about ASTRA remain few and far in between, and today many people believe that
this world-class hacker is now cooperating with European governments against other cybercriminals.
FANCY BEAR
Perhaps the most famous name in criminal hacking today, Fancy Bear is not an individual but
rather a collection of hackers whom are widely suspected to be directly overseen and financed
by Russia's GRU intelligence agency.
Despite denying their involvement with the criminal hackers for years, Fancy bears methods,
actions, and resources are consistent with the capabilities of state actors.
The group also routinely targets NATO and Balkan State government, military, and security
organizations- a fact that we're sure is pure coincidence.
Fanzy Bear is directly credited with attacks on the German parliament, the french television
station TV5Monde, the White House, NATO, the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe, and the campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron- a known hardliner
against Russian aggression.
The group however rose to public notoriety after their attacks against the Democratic
National Committee during the 2016 Presidential election, and the leaking of Democratic emails
in order to help Donald Trump with the election.
Perhaps Fancy Bear's most well-known operative goes by the persona Guccifer 2.0 and claimed
sole responsibility for the releasing of the DNC's emails.
However in 2018 Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's meddling of the American election
revealed that Guccifer was not an individual, but a collection of Russian intelligence officers-
whom have been indicted and face the possibility of extradition and jail time if they ever
leave home again.
Fancy Bear may indeed thus be one of the most feared hacker groups in the world, but it
seems that the most feared hackers of all may just be the US's FBI, with their power
to unmask Russia's best efforts to remain anonymous.
There may be plenty of hackers out there that the government fears, but that doesn’t mean
that you should too!
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If you thought this video was interesting, make sure you check out our other video: Hackers
Who Now Work For The Government!
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