The Top 5 Most Famous Hacks In History

The more we live our lives online, the more important internet security becomes. But it’s not just home computers that are susceptible to a virus or an online attack – big multinational companies have been the victims of some of the worst hacks.

Corporate hacking happens for many reasons. Some hackers are criminally motivated, others do it for the fame, and some are exacting revenge. Whatever the reason for a corporate hack though, they generally affect millions of people and cost millions of dollars to fix.

1. Web Giants Floored By Teen Hacker

Back in early 2000, most IT Managers were simply relieved that the Millennium Bug had come to nothing. Little did they know that a Canadian teen had something far worse up his sleeve.

Michael Calce, aka Mafiaboy, took down some of the world’s biggest websites with a fairly simple hack. Using a DDoS, or distributed denial of service attack, he deluged the sites with so many requests that the servers couldn’t cope with them and the sites shut down completely. His first victim was Yahoo, which was the world’s leading search engine at the time. He later hacked eBay, CNN, Amazon and Dell, although Dell didn’t admit to the breach until sometime later.

These attacks are estimated to have cost around US $1.2 billion and exposed how vulnerable websites are to hackers. Politicians took note and US President Bill Clinton called a summit on cyber crime.

Calce believes that many of the internet security issues he exposed in 2000 still exist. He discusses this in a CNN interview.

Chinese Hackers Hack India’s Defense System

According to “Times of India”, the Chinese hackers have reportedly broken into the top secret files of Indian Defense system. So far it has been acknowledged that it is the biggest security breach in the history of Indian Defense System. Due to this successful hacking attempt, major Indian missile and armament systems may have compromised been compromised.

According to the report, this cyber attack has resulted the leakage of “Shakti” (the newly introduced advanced artillery combat and control system of the Indian Army) and the new mobile missile defense system called the Iron Dome. These leaks were detected in the first week of March. Canadian and American researchers at University of Toronto have published their report called ’Shadow in the Clouds’. This report has explained the spy operation called ‘Shadow Network’ operated out of China, which has tapped the top secret files of the Indian government. Researchers have also claimed that these Chinese cyber spies have also tapped into the Indian embassies in Belgium, Serbia, Germany, Italy, Kuwait and the United States. The tap is aimed to assess the Indian government’s relations with other countries throughout the world. Follow-up investigations into report have confirmed that these cyber attacks were carried out from the servers located in China. The report claimed that the cyber attack has compromised Indian defense, business, academic and government systems.

Earlier this year, the US government claimed that they have averted an attack on US defense system by the Chinese hackers.