Top 3 most notorious hackers and hacker groups

Kevin Mitnick, a.k.a. Condor

Kevin Mitnick a.k.a. Condor is seen as one of the most influential individuals in the hacker world and is considered a legend amongst other hackers. Kevin achieved this status through several hacks he performed in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1983 Condor successfully hacked into the servers of Pentagon (The Department of Defense and America’s largest government agency), resulting in his second arrest. Besides a few other infamous hacks, Kevin also became known by hacking into the NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) and the NSA (National Security Agency). In 2003 Kevin Mitnick was released from prison and since then he has been a consultant and owner at his consultancy company in the (cyber) security industry, as well as an ethical hacker.

Anonymous (collective)

Anonymous is an international collective of hackers and activists founded in 2003. Anonymous have made themselves known through various attacks targeting websites and other communication channels of governments, companies, and agencies. The hacker movement usually carries out attacks against organizations it condemns to be incorrect and unjust. The most well-known attacks are for example the attack on the Church of Scientology, where they repeatedly had faxes from the organization print black pages, they were making phony phone calls and carrying out attacks where they took down the organization’s websites. Digital attacks in response to the IS attacks, in which sites and social media accounts were taken offline and members’ personal data were distributed were also claimed by Anonymous. And most recently, Anonymous have received a lot of publicity because of the (cyber)war against Russia after the attack on Ukraine, because of this declaration several Russian government websites were taken offline, private data of government employees was distributed, and Russian state television channels were hacked, and war images were broadcast.

Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev

Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev is still on the FBI’s most wanted list. The 39-year-old Russian has been wanted for years by, among others, the FBI, the Russian FSB, and the Dutch police. In 2014, Bogachev was identified as the mastermind behind the harmful ZeuS virus, after which the United States offered a $3 million reward in 2015 for information leading to Bogachev’s arrest The Russian is estimated to have captured several hundreds of millions using so-called hostage software. Police documents show that Bogachev previously found a victim in the ABN AMRO bank. Bogachev usually works under the pseudonyms ‘Umbro’, ‘Lucky12345’, ‘Monster’ and ‘Slavik’. It is also known that the police have previously been able to arrest hundreds of criminals from his organization, but he himself remained out of reach of the arm of the law.