Hackers all have different intentions. Some work to making computer networks more secure, while others develop malware and exploit software vulnerabilities.
Of the latter group, there is a special subclass of criminals: those who make the FBI’s Cyber’s Most Wanted list. These individuals give a whole new meaning to black-hat hacking. The nature of their crimes is such that all U.S. law enforcement agencies have mobilized against them under a shared commitment to bring these bad actors to justice.
Jan 12, 2015 While some hacker groups (white hats) claim to have the greater good in mind, other groups (black hats) are clearly driven by greed. There have been dozens of movies about hacker. Black hat hackers are the stereotypical illegal hacking groups often portrayed in popular culture, and are 'the epitome of all that the public fears in a computer criminal'. Black hat hackers break into secure networks to destroy, modify, or steal data, or to make the networks unusable for authorized network users. Security hacker. Still, we hear the news about hacker groups who took down several government websites and block the network. On a brighter side, all of them contributed a major role in developing computer security. The following list includes hacker groups, belongs to both white hat and black hat hackers.
For the next few weeks, we will be counting down 10 of the most wanted black-hat hackers by the FBI. This week, we begin with number 10.
Behzad Mesri
In May 2017, Iran-based black-hat hacker Behzad Mesri began conducting reconnaissance of the networks and employees at Home Box Office (HBO), a premium cable and satellite television network. He spent the next two months compromising employees’ accounts so that he could access corporate servers and exfiltrate sensitive data. Some of the information he stole included footage from upcoming episodes of popular HBO shows like “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
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- The Counterintuitive History of Black Hats, White Hats, And Villains Even in old Westerns, the white hat/black hat divide is less distinct than is often remembered.
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Three weeks before OurMine hacked the network’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, Mesri sent an email to multiple HBO executives and employees claiming he had stolen 1.5 terabytes of HBO’s data. A follow-up email alleged that he had lifted full scripts and cast lists for “Game of Thrones” as well as “precious data” for unaired shows.
Mesri, who previously worked for the Iranian military, issued his ultimatum to HBO on 23 July 2017: pay $5.5 million in Bitcoin or suffer the public release of its stolen data. The member of the Turk Black Hat hacking group upped his demands to $6 million three days later.
After HBO refused to meet the ransom, Mesri publicly released some of the stolen data beginning on 30 July 2017 and throughout August. He helped promote the data dumps by creating a Twitter profile that announced the leaks and by sending emails to the media about the disclosures, reveals a statement published by the Department of Justice.
It didn’t take long for law enforcement to catch wind of what Mesri was doing. Such interest begot an investigation that culminated in a grand jury indictment on the black-hat hacker on 8 November 2017. Filed in the United States District Court, Southern District of New York, those court documents charged Mesri with one count of wire fraud, a crime which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; one count of computer hacking, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison; three counts of attempting to undermine information’s confidentiality, each of which bear a maximum prison stay of five years; and one count each of both aggravated identity theft and the interstate transmission of extortion-based threats, crimes which both carry a maximum sentence of two years in prison.
It was at that time that law enforcement filed a federal arrest warrant against Mesri.
There has been no news of Mesri since the U.S. District Court filed the indictment against him. In all likelihood, he’s holed up in his native country. Unfortunately, the lack of an American-Iranian extradition treaty means Mesri will likely never stand trial in the United States if he’s located and unmasked in Iran.
But it’s not impossible. For more information on Mesri and how you can help bring him justice, check out the FBI’s poster on this computer criminal.
You can read about some other black-hat hackers wanted by the FBI below:
- The FBI’s 10 Most-Wanted Black-Hat Hackers – #10
Hackers aren’t inherently bad — the word “hacker” doesn’t mean “criminal” or “bad guy.” Geeks and tech writers often refer to “black hat,” “white hat,” and “gray hat” hackers. These terms define different groups of hackers based on their behavior.
The definition of the word “hacker” is controversial, and could mean either someone who compromises computer security or a skilled developer in the free software or open-source movements.
Black Hats
Black-hat hackers, or simply “black hats,” are the type of hacker the popular media seems to focus on. Black-hat hackers violate computer security for personal gain (such as stealing credit card numbers or harvesting personal data for sale to identity thieves) or for pure maliciousness (such as creating a botnet and using that botnet to perform DDOS attacks against websites they don’t like.)
Black hats fit the widely-held stereotype that hackers are criminals performing illegal activities for personal gain and attacking others. They’re the computer criminals.
A black-hat hacker who finds a new, “zero-day” security vulnerability would sell it to criminal organizations on the black market or use it to compromise computer systems.
![Black Black](https://www.blackhatethicalhacking.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/0146695-1024x546.jpg)
Media portrayals of black-hat hackers may be accompanied by silly stock photos like the below one, which is intended as a parody.
White Hats
White-hat hackers are the opposite of the black-hat hackers. They’re the “ethical hackers,” experts in compromising computer security systems who use their abilities for good, ethical, and legal purposes rather than bad, unethical, and criminal purposes.
For example, many white-hat hackers are employed to test an organizations’ computer security systems. The organization authorizes the white-hat hacker to attempt to compromise their systems. The white-hat hacker uses their knowledge of computer security systems to compromise the organization’s systems, just as a black hat hacker would. However, instead of using their access to steal from the organization or vandalize its systems, the white-hat hacker reports back to the organization and informs them of how they gained access, allowing the organization to improve their defenses. This is known as “penetration testing,” and it’s one example of an activity performed by white-hat hackers.
A white-hat hacker who finds a security vulnerability would disclose it to the developer, allowing them to patch their product and improve its security before it’s compromised. Various organizations pay “bounties” or award prizes for revealing such discovered vulnerabilities, compensating white-hats for their work.
Gray Hats
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Very few things in life are clear black-and-white categories. In reality, there’s often a gray area. A gray-hat hacker falls somewhere between a black hat and a white hat. A gray hat doesn’t work for their own personal gain or to cause carnage, but they may technically commit crimes and do arguably unethical things.
For example, a black hat hacker would compromise a computer system without permission, stealing the data inside for their own personal gain or vandalizing the system. A white-hat hacker would ask for permission before testing the system’s security and alert the organization after compromising it. A gray-hat hacker might attempt to compromise a computer system without permission, informing the organization after the fact and allowing them to fix the problem. While the gray-hat hacker didn’t use their access for bad purposes, they compromised a security system without permission, which is illegal.
If a gray-hat hacker discovers a security flaw in a piece of software or on a website, they may disclose the flaw publically instead of privately disclosing the flaw to the organization and giving them time to fix it. They wouldn’t take advantage of the flaw for their own personal gain — that would be black-hat behavior — but the public disclosure could cause carnage as black-hat hackers tried to take advantage of the flaw before it was fixed.
“Black hat,” “white hat,” and “gray hat” can also refer to behavior. For example, if someone says “that seems a bit black hat,” that means that the action in question seems unethical.
Image Credit: zeevveez on Flickr (modified), Adam Thomas on Flickr, Luiz Eduardo on Flickr, Alexandre Normand on Flickr
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