These Are 5 Most Dangerous And Famous Hackers

Hacking is the practice or art of manipulating computer systems to get the desired results. (Illustration: unspalsh)

JAKARTA - The history of hacking is almost as long as the history of computing itself. Let's take a look at today's most famous hackers. Find out what puts them among the best hackers in the world, and learn what they've done and how they did it.

Hacking is the practice or art of manipulating computer systems to get the desired results. While some of the top hackers featured in this article use their skills for good, others are cybercriminals who steal millions of dollars and cause other damage.

The people on this list have all been making waves in recent years for their cybercrime exploits. What's more, they all did it themselves. AVG BreachGuard discusses hacking groups in this article. From Twitter hackers who scammed people out of their bitcoins to creators of the most famous botnets of all time, these are the most dangerous hackers in the world

Elliott Gunton

At the young age of 16, Elliott Gunton was caught hacking the telecommunications company TalkTalk. Since then, he has been accused of various crimes in England. Such as data theft, counterfeiting, money laundering with cryptocurrencies, working as hired criminals, hacking and selling access to famous Instagram accounts, and many more.

In the US, he was charged with identity theft and piracy of EtherDelta, a currency exchange site, and defrauding people of millions of dollars for nearly two weeks. Authorities claim that he managed to swipe up to USD 800.000 from just one of the many people he tricked.

After pleading guilty in England, Gunton spent 20 months in prison. This penalty is relatively severe, by British standards. He was also fined more than 400.000 pounds. Gunton's charges in the US are still ongoing, as authorities are currently seeking testimony from his victims.

In the end, Elliot Gunton is not the most dangerous hacker in the world, but the breadth of his cybercrime certainly deserves to be included in this list of the most famous hackers.

Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev

It's rare that a cybercriminal with Bogachev's expertise is ever identified, but then, malware of the magnitude and destruction of the Gameover ZeuS botnet is also rare.

The Bogachev botnet reaches millions of computers worldwide, infects them with ransomware, and steals all the data they store on their systems. This not only resulted in more than $100 million in losses but also brought Bogachev to the attention of the Russian government, which may have used his network for espionage purposes.

It took the FBI and other international crime organizations just two years to identify Bogachev, and they're offering three million dollars, to anyone who can help bring him to justice. It's the biggest prize ever posted to a cybercriminal. Bogachev now lives openly in southern Russia with a number of luxury cars and his own private yacht.

The Russian government has never admitted to working with him. Currently, Bogachev operates under usernames including slavik, lucky12345, and pollingsoon. With one of the most destructive malware, it is not surprising that Bogachev is among the best hackers in the world.

Graham Ivan Clark

Does it seem strange that Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Kanye West, and Elon Musk would ask you for bitcoins on Twitter? If so, you might have avoided Graham Ivan Clark's massive Twitter hack that exploded in the summer of 2020 and made young Clark one of the most famous hackers in the world.

17-year-old Clark and his henchmen hack into the social media giant and use internal Twitter tools and take over many high-profile accounts in a sprawling Bitcoin scam. The hacker used the compromised account to tweet a message promising 2.000 in bitcoins to anyone who sent them 1.000 in the same cryptocurrency.

Of course, the Bitcoin wallet included in the tweet is controlled by hackers. This person hacking attack ended up defrauding the victim of more than 100.000 US dollars. Clark pleaded guilty and is seeking a three-year prison term in 2021, to avoid a 10-year minimum if he is tried as an adult.

Alexsey Belan

Long before the hack that put him in the public eye, Alexsey Belan was well known among hackers as M4G. In addition to hacking video game servers, an Israel-based cloud computing supplier, and the ICQ website, Alexsey started working as a consultant to other hackers and selling people's personal data online.

In 2011, Belan was considered one of the most dangerous hackers in the world by law enforcement, and in 2012, he was officially wanted for his crimes. From 2013 to 2016, Belan hacked and stole data from 700 million accounts: 500 million from Yahoo, and 200 million from other sources, allegedly at the behest of the Russian FSB.

As one of the most notorious hackers, Belan's whereabouts are currently unknown, although he was last known to live in Russia. Karim Baratov, one of Belan's accomplices, was extradited to the United States and sentenced to five years in prison and fined USD 2.25 million.

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Aaron Swartz

The late Aaron Swartz was widely regarded as one of the best and most famous hackers of all time. Not a financially motivated cybercriminal but an internet activist, or hacker, Swartz applied his extraordinary skills to turn the internet into a free and open platform for the exchange of information.

Swartz was instrumental in building RSS feeds, Creative Commons programs, social media site Reddit, and many other internet-based initiatives. But it was the hack of the MIT network, where he downloaded thousands of articles from the closed academic resource platform JSTOR, that ended up making him a target for the US government.

Federal authorities in the US are determined to set an example for the outspoken young activist. After two years of relentless legal battles and facing up to 35 years in prison, Swartz tragically committed suicide on January 11, 2013, at the age of 26.