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This is a timeline of hacker history. Hacking and system cracking appeared with the first electronic computers. Below are some important events in the history of hacking and cracking. Image File history File links Information_icon. ... Image File history File links Information_icon. ... This Manual of Style has the simple purpose of making things easy to read by following a consistent format — it is a style guide. ... Shortcut: WP:NPOV Wikipedia policy is that all articles should be written from a neutral point of view. ... Shortcut: WP:-( Vandalism is indisputable bad-faith addition, deletion, or change to content, made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia. ... Hacker in a security context refers to a type of computer hacker who is involved in computer security/insecurity and is able to exploit systems or gain unauthorized access through skills, tactics and detailed knowledge. ... In computer security, hacker refers to a type of computer hacker who is involved in programming and computer insecurity and are able to exploits systems and/or gain unauthorized access through skills, tactics and detailed knowledge. ... The field of electronics comprises the study and use of systems that operate by controlling the flow of electrons (or other charge carriers) in devices such as thermionic valves (vacuum tubes) and semiconductors. ... A Lego RCX Computer is an example of an embedded computer used to control mechanical devices. ...

Introduction

This timeline is entitled "Hacker history", but it encompasses infamous cyber attacks by crackers and groundbreaking legal rulings, as well as advances within the information security realm, covering basic inter-network computing as well as other technologies such as telecommunications. The timeline of hacker history focuses on milestones and delivers an overview of events that have altered the way in which information security is seen today, whether negative or positive. Information security deals with several different trust aspects of information. ... The Internet is the worldwide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). ... A Spanish kilometre stone A milestone on the Boston Post Road in Harvard Square, Massachusetts, USA Slate milestone near Bangor, Wales A milestone or kilometre sign is one of a series of numbered markers placed along a road at regular intervals, typically at the side of the road or in...

This page will not list every single detail, nor seemingly insignificant events, and therefore should never be considered a complete timeline of hacking or information security.

1970s

1971

• a Vietnam War veteran named John Draper discovers that the give-away whistle in Cap'n Crunch cereal boxes perfectly reproduces a 2600 hertz tone. Draper builds a "blue box" that, when used with the whistle and sounded into a phone receiver, allows phreaks to make free calls. Shortly afterwards, Esquire magazine publishes "Secrets of the Little Blue Box" with instructions for making a blue box, and wire fraud in the United States escalates.

Combatants Republic of Vietnam United States Republic of Korea Thailand Australia New Zealand The Philippines National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam Democratic Republic of Vietnam People’s Republic of China Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Strength US 1,000,000 South Korea 300,000 Australia 48,000... John T. Draper (born 1944), also known as Captain Crunch, Crunch or Crunchman (after Capn Crunch, the mascot of a breakfast cereal), was a phone phreaker. ... A whistle is a one-note woodwind instrument which produces sound from a stream of forced air. ... An older Capn Crunch package Capn Crunch is a breakfast cereal manufactured by The Quaker Oats Company of Chicago, Illinois, and the mascot of that cereal. ... Oats, barley, and some products made from them Cereal crops are mostly grasses cultivated for their edible grains or seeds (technically a type of fruit called a caryopsis). ... The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the SI unit of frequency. ... The blue box previously owned by Steve Wozniak, on display at the Computer History Museum. ... Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a subculture of people who study, experiment with, or exploit telephones, the telephone company, and systems connected to or composing the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) for the purposes of hobby or utility. ... Cover of an issue of Esquire magazine. ... Wire fraud is a legal concept in the United States Code which provides for enhanced penalty of any criminally fraudulent activity if it is determined that the activity involved electronic communications of any sort, at any phase of the event. ...

1972

• Abbie Hoffman helps found The Youth International Party Line newsletter. Hoffman's publishing partner, Al Bell, changed the YIPL newsletter's name to TAP, for Technical Assistance Program.
• The InterNetworking Working Group is founded to govern the standards of the developing network. Vinton Cerf is the chairman and is known as a "Father of the Internet."

Abbott Howard Abbie Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was a social and political activist in the United States, co-founder of the Youth International Party (Yippies), and later, a fugitive from the law, who lived under an alias following a conviction for dealing cocaine. ... The Youth International Party (whose adherents were known as Yippies, a variant on Hippies) was a highly theatrical political party established in the United States in 1967. ... A newsletter is a regularly distributed publication generally about one main topic that is of interest to its subscribers. ... Vinton G. Cerf (born June 23, 1943) is commonly referred to as the father of the Internet. During his tenure from 1976 to 1982 with the United States Department of Defenses Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Cerf played a key role leading the development of Internet and Internet-related...

1973

• College kids Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, future founders of Apple Computer, begin making and selling blue boxes.

Stephen Gary Woz Wozniak (born August 11, 1950 in San Jose, California) is an American computer engineer turned philanthropist. ... Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is the co-founder and CEO of Apple Computer and was the CEO of Pixar until its acquisition by Disney [2], and he is currently the largest shareholder at Disney. ... Apple Computer, Inc. ... The blue box previously owned by Steve Wozniak, on display at the Computer History Museum. ...

1978

• First report of teen-age boys being kicked off the telephone system for pranks. Also, this is when "hacker" is first termed because boys first ran the early switchboards of Bell telephones. They were kicked off because they were misdirecting calls and listening in on conversations.
• Bulletin boards with names such as Sherwood Forest and Catch-22 become the venue of choice for phreaks and hackers to gossip, trade tips, and share secret phone numbers, computer passwords, and even credit card numbers.
• Susan Thunder is one of the early "phone phreakers", part of Kevin Mitnick’s crew who break into phone lines.

Look up Telephone in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Well-used bulletin board on the Infinite Corridor at MIT, November 2004. ... Birch trees in the Sherwood Forest The legendary Major Oak View of the Forest looking Northeast Sherwood Forest is a world famous country park surrounding the village of Edwinstowe in Nottinghamshire, England, historically associated with the legend of Robin Hood. ... Catch 22 can refer to: A book by Joseph Heller, or the movie based on the book; see Catch-22. ... Susan Headley (also known as Susy Thunder, Suzy Thunder or Susan Thunder) was a hacker during the late 1970s and early 1980s. ... Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a subculture of people who study, experiment with, or exploit telephones, the telephone company, and systems connected to or composing the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) for the purposes of hobby or utility. ... Kevin Mitnick Kevin David Mitnick was convicted of wire fraud and of breaking into the computer systems of Fujitsu, Motorola, Nokia, and Sun Microsystems. ...

1980s

1981

• Chaos Computer Club forms in Germany.

The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is one of the biggest and most influental hacker organisations. ...

1982

• In Milwaukee a group of six teenage hackers calling themselves the 414's (their area code) break into some 60 computer systems at institutions ranging from the Los Alamos Laboratories to Manhattan's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center before being arrested.

This article is about Milwaukee in Wisconsin. ... Events Ataulf, king of the Visigoths, marries Galla Placidia, the sister of Roman Emperor Honorius. ... The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York is a treatment and research institution founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital. ...

1983

• Movie WarGames introduces the wider public to the phenomenon of hacking and creates a degree of mass paranoia of hackers and their supposed abilities to bring the world to a screeching halt by launching nuclear ICBM's.
• Secret Service gets jurisdiction over credit card and computer fraud.

This article is about the 1983 US movie. ... Because of both the secrecy of secret services and the controversial nature of the issues involved, there is some difficulty in separating the definitions of secret service, secret police, intelligence agency etc. ... Credit cards A credit card system is a type of retail transaction settlement and credit system, named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. ...

1984

• Someone calling himself Lex Luthor founds the Legion of Doom. Named after a Saturday morning cartoon, the LOD had the reputation of attracting "the best of the best" — until one of the gang's brightest young acolytes, a kid named Phiber Optik, feuded with Legion of Doomer Erik Bloodaxe and got tossed out of the clubhouse. Phiber's friends formed a rival group, the Masters of Deception.
• The Comprehensive Crime Control Act gives the Secret Service jurisdiction over computer fraud.
• CULT OF THE DEAD COW forms in Lubbock, Texas and begins publishing its ezine.
• The hacker magazine 2600 begins regular publication, right when TAP was putting out its final issue. The editor of 2600, "Emmanuel Goldstein" (whose real name is Eric Corley), takes his handle from the leader of the resistance in George Orwell's 1984. The publication provides tips for would-be hackers and phone phreaks, as well as commentary on the hacker issues of the day. Today, copies of 2600 are sold at most large retail bookstores.
• The first Chaos Communication Congress, the annual European hacker conference organized by the Chaos Computer Club, is held in Hamburg

Alexander Joseph Lex Luthor is a fictional character, a DC Comics supervillain and Supermans nemesis. ... For other uses, see Legion of Doom (disambiguation). ... Abene in a radio show, from Freedom Downtime. ... Chris Goggans, 2004. ... Masters of Deception (MOD) were a New York-based hacker group. ... CULT OF THE DEAD COW, also known as cDc, is a computer hacker and DIY media organization founded in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas. ... Nickname: Hub City Location within the state of Texas Coordinates: County Lubbock County Mayor David Miller Area    - City 297. ... An underground ezine is a publication without defined periodicity that discusses any subject which the publisher deems interesting or newsworthy. ... Hackers are sometimes portrayed as mysterious and strange. ... 2600 may refer to: 2600 Hz, the tone used by a blue box to gain control of telephone networks 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, a magazine named after the above tone The Atari 2600 was a popular video game console 2600 (year) The ARP 2600 was a synthesizer The stable public... Emmanuel Goldstein is a key character in George Orwells novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. ... Left to right: Deth Vegetable, Eric Emmanuel Goldstein Corley and Joe630 in Freedom Downtime Eric Gorden Corley is a member of the computer hacker community and goes by the name Emmanuel Goldstein, after the leader of the underground in George Orwells classic, Nineteen Eighty-Four. ... Eric Arthur Blair (June 25, 1903[1][2] – January 21, 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. ... The Chaos Communication Congress is a three-day meeting of the international hacker scene, organized by the Chaos Computer Club. ... The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is one of the biggest and most influental hacker organisations. ... Hamburgs motto: May the posterity endeavour with dignity to conserve the freedom, which the forefathers acquired. ...

1985

• The online 'zine Phrack is established.
• The Hacker's Handbook is published in the UK

Phrack is an underground ezine made by and for hackers that has been around since November 17, 1985. ... The Hackers Handbook is a legendary non-fiction book from the 1980s effectively explaining how computer systems of the period were hacked. ...

1986

• After more and more break-ins to government and corporate computers, Congress passes the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which makes it a crime to break into computer systems. The law, however, does not cover juveniles.
• Arrest of a hacker who calls himself The Mentor. He published a now-famous treatise shortly after his arrest that came to be known as the Hacker's Manifesto in the e-zine entitled Phrack. This still serves as the most famous piece of hacker literature and is frequently used to illustrate the mindset of hackers.

A corporation is a legal person which, while being composed of natural persons, exists completely separately from them. ... The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is a law passed by the United States Congress in 1986 intended to reduce hacking of computer systems. ... Loyd Blankenship (a. ... The Conscience of a Hacker (a. ... Phrack is an underground ezine made by and for hackers that has been around since November 17, 1985. ...

1987

• Decoder magazine begins in Italy.
• The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) is created to address network security.

The CERT/CC (Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center) was created by DARPA in November 1988 after the Morris worm struck. ... For other meanings of CERT, see CERT (disambiguation) The CERT/CC (Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center) was created by DARPA in November 1988 after the Morris Worm struck. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ...

1988

• The Morris Worm: Robert T. Morris, Jr. (RTM), a graduate student at Cornell University and son of a chief scientist at a division of the National Security Agency, launches a self-replicating worm on the government's ARPAnet (precursor to the Internet) to test its effect on UNIX systems. The worm gets out of hand and spreads to some 6000 networked computers, clogging government and university systems. Morris is dismissed from Cornell, sentenced to three years' probation, and fined $10,000.
• Kevin Mitnick secretly monitors the e-mail of MCI Communications and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) security officials. Kevin Mitnick is convicted of violating computer network of DEC and sentenced to a year in jail.
• Kevin Poulsen — was indicted on phone-tampering charges. Kevin went on the run and avoided capture for 17 months.
• First National Bank of Chicago is the victim of $70-million computer theft.

The Morris worm or Internet worm was one of the first computer worms distributed via the Internet; it is considered the first worm and was certainly the first to gain significant mainstream media attention. ... Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. ... RTM may stand for: Read the manual, as a variant of RTFM. Release to manufacturing, a synonym of Gone gold. ... Cornell redirects here. ... The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) is the U.S. governments cryptologic organization. ... ARPANET logical map, March 1977. ... Unix or UNIX is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and Douglas McIlroy. ... Kevin Mitnick Kevin David Mitnick was convicted of wire fraud and of breaking into the computer systems of Fujitsu, Motorola, Nokia, and Sun Microsystems. ... MCIs original corporate logo MCI Communications was an American telecommunications company that was instrumental in legal and regulatory changes that led to the breakup of the AT&T monopoly of American telephony. ... The DEC logo Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the computer industry. ... Kevin Lee Poulsen (far right), pictured circa 2001 with Kevin Mitnick and Adrian Lamo Kevin Poulsen (born 1965 in Pasadena, California, USA) is a former black hat hacker. ...

1989

• The Germans and the KGB: In the first cyberespionage case to make international headlines, hackers in West Germany (loosely affiliated with the Chaos Computer Club) are arrested for breaking into U.S. government and corporate computers and selling operating-system source code to the Soviet KGB. Three of them are turned in by two fellow hacker spies, and a fourth suspected hacker commits suicide when his possible role in the plan is publicized. Because the information stolen is not classified, the hackers are fined and sentenced to probation. In a separate incident,
• Fry Guy is raided by law enforcement; police hunt for Legion of Doom hackers.
• Jude Milhon (aka St Jude) and R. U. Sirius launch Mondo 2000, a major '90s tech-lifestyle magazine, in Berkeley, California.

The KGB emblem and motto: The sword and the shield KGB (transliteration of КГБ) is the Russian-language abbreviation for Committee for State Security, (Russian: ; Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti). ... Cyberespionage is a form of spying (or espionage) whereby hackers invade the servers of foreign governments, agencies and/or corporations in order to gather information, infect their systems, or monitor their activity. ... The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is one of the biggest and most influental hacker organisations. ... Motto: (Out Of Many, One) (traditional) In God We Trust (1956 to date) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington D.C. Largest city New York City None at federal level (English de facto) Government Federal constitutional republic  - President George Walker Bush (R)  - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence from... Motto: Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Transliterated: Proletarii vsekh stran, soedinyaytes!) (Russian: Workers of the world, unite!) Anthem: The Internationale (1922-1944) Hymn of the Soviet Union (1944-1991) Capital (and largest city) Moscow None; Russian de facto Government Federation of Soviet Republics  - Last President Mikhail Gorbachev  - Last Premier Ivan Silayev Establishment October Revolution   - Declared... For the band, see The Police. ... Jude Milhon (1939 - 19 July 2003) was a hacker and author in the San Francisco Bay Area. ... R. U. Sirius R. U. Sirius (born Ken Goffman) is an American writer, musician, and cyberculture icon best known as co-founder and original Editor-In-Chief of Mondo 2000. ... Mondo 2000 #13 Mondo 2000 was a glossy cyberculture magazine published in California during the 1980s and 1990s. ... Berkeley is a city on the east shore of San Francisco Bay in northern California, in the United States. ...

1990s

1990

• Operation Sundevil introduced. After a prolonged sting investigation, Secret Service agents swoop down on organizers and prominent members of BBSs in 14 U.S. cities including the Legion of Doom, conducting early-morning raids and arrests. The arrests involve and are aimed at cracking down on credit-card theft and telephone and wire fraud. The result is a breakdown in the hacking community, with members informing on each other in exchange for immunity. The offices of Steve Jackson Games are also raided, and the role-playing sourcebook GURPS Cyberpunk is confiscated, possibly because the government fears it is a "handbook for computer crime". Legal battles arise that prompt the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
• LOD and MOD engaged in almost two years of online warfare — jamming phone lines, monitoring calls, trespassing in each other's private computers. Then the Feds cracked down. For Phiber and friends, that meant jail.

Operation Sundevil was a 1990 nation-wide United States Secret Service crackdown on illegal computer hacking activities. Along with the Chicago Task Force and the Arizona Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau, they conducted raids in Austin, Cincinnati, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Newark, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Tucson, San Diego... Ward Christensen and the first public Bulletin Board System, CBBS A Bulletin Board System or BBS is software that allows users to connect to the computer system on which the software is installed. ... For other uses, see Legion of Doom (disambiguation). ... Steve Jackson Games (SJG) is a game company that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games. ... A role-playing game (RPG, often roleplaying game) is a type of game in which the participants assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create or follow stories. ... Written by Loyd Blankenship and published by Steve Jackson Games in 1995, GURPS Cyberpunk is a sourcebook for a cyberpunk-themed role-playing game based in a fictional, near-future dystopia, such as that envisioned by William Gibson in his influential novel Neuromancer. ... EFF Logo The EFF uses the blue ribbon as symbolism for their Free Speech defense. ... The Hall of Doom, the Legion of Dooms headquarters The Legion of Doom was a group of supervillains led by Lex Luthor that appeared in Super Friends, a 1970s and 1980s animated series that starred superheroes from DC Comics. ... Masters of Deception (MOD) were a New York-based hacker group. ... A war is a conflict between two or more groups that involve large numbers of individuals. ... A telephone line (or just line) is a single-user circuit on a telephone communications system. ... A sign warning against trespassing // In law, trespass can be: the criminal act of going into somebody elses land or property without permission of the owner or lessee; it is also a civil law tort that may be a valid cause of action to seek judicial relief and possibly...

1991

• Rumors circulate about the "Michelangelo" virus, expected to crash computers on March 6, 1992, the artist's 517th birthday. Doomsday passes without incident.
• Kevin Poulsen is captured and indicted for stealing military documents.
• Former Legion of Doom members Patrick K. Kroupa (Lord Digital) and Bruce Fancher (Dead Lord) found MindVox.
• resulted in jail sentences for four members of the Masters of Deception. Phiber Optik spent a year in federal prison.

The Michelangelo virus is a computer virus first discovered in April 1991 in New Zealand. ... March 6 is the 65th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (66th in Leap years). ... 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... Kevin Lee Poulsen (far right), pictured circa 2001 with Kevin Mitnick and Adrian Lamo Kevin Poulsen (born 1965 in Pasadena, California, USA) is a former black hat hacker. ... A document contains information. ... The Hall of Doom, the Legion of Dooms headquarters The Legion of Doom was a group of supervillains led by Lex Luthor that appeared in Super Friends, a 1970s and 1980s animated series that starred superheroes from DC Comics. ... Patrick K. Kroupa, 2005. ... Bruce Fancher, 2005. ... MindVox was a famed early Internet Service Provider in New York City. ...

1992

• Release of the movie Sneakers, in which security experts are blackmailed into stealing a universal decoder for encryption systems.
• MindVox opens to the public.
• Hackers break into GAFB, NASA and KARI.

Sneakers is a 1992 film directed by Phil Alden Robinson (Field of Dreams) and starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, and David Strathairn. ... // In cryptography, encryption is the process of obscuring information to make it unreadable without special knowledge. ... System (from the Latin (systēma), and this from the Greek (sustēma)) is an assemblage of entity/objects, real or abstract, comprising a whole with each and every component/element interacting or related to at least one other component/element. ... MindVox was a famed early Internet Service Provider in New York City. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... NASA Insignia Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from an article revision dated 2005-09-01, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) is the aeronautics and space agency of South Korea. ...

1993

• During radio station call-in contests, hacker-fugitive Kevin Poulsen and two friends rig the stations' phone systems to let only their calls through, and "win" two Porsches, vacation trips, and $20,000. Poulsen, already wanted for breaking into phone-company systems, serves five years in prison for computer and wire fraud.
• Texas A&M University professor receives death threats because a hacker used his computer to send 20,000 racist e-mails.
• The first DEF CON hacking conference takes place in Las Vegas. The conference is meant to be a one-time party to say good-bye to BBSs (now replaced by the Web), but the gathering is so popular it becomes an annual event.
• AOL gives its users access to USENET, precipitating Eternal September.

Dr. Ing. ... Wire fraud is a legal concept in the United States Code which provides for enhanced penalty of any criminally fraudulent activity if it is determined that the activity involved electronic communications of any sort, at any phase of the event. ... Texas A&M University, often Texas A&M, A&M or TAMU for short, is the flagship[4] institution of the Texas A&M University System. ... A defcon 13 human badge DEF CON is the worlds largest annual hacker convention, held every year in Las Vegas, Nevada. ... This article is about the city of Las Vegas in Nevada. ... AOL LLC (formerly America Online, Inc) is an American online service provider, bulletin board system, and media company operated by Time Warner. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... Eternal September (also Great September, September that never ended, perpetual September, or endless September) is a Usenet slang expressions for the period of time beginning September 1993. ...

1994

• Summer: Russian crackers siphon $10 million from Citibank and transfer the money to bank accounts around the world. Vladimir Levin, the 30-year-old ringleader, uses his work laptop after hours to transfer the funds to accounts in Finland and Israel. Levin stands trial in the United States and is sentenced to three years in prison. Authorities recover all but $400,000 of the stolen money.
• Hackers adapt to emergence of the World Wide Web quickly, moving all their how-to information and hacking programs from the old BBSs to new hacker Web sites.
• AOHell is released, a freeware application that allows a burgeoning community of unskilled script kiddies to wreak havoc on America Online. For days, hundreds of thousands of AOL users find their mailboxes flooded with multi-megabyte mail bombs and their chat rooms disrupted with spam messages.

In the context of computer networking, cracking (also called black-hat hacking) is the act of compromising the security of a system without permission from an authorized party, usually with the intent of accessing computers connected to the network. ... Vladimir Levin is the handle of the mathematician who is alleged to be the mastermind of the Russian cracker gang that stole US$10 million from Citibanks computer system. ... Leadership - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... WWWs historical logo designed by Robert Cailliau The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is a system of interlinked, hypertext documents that runs over the Internet. ... A website, Web site or WWW site (often shortened to just site) is a collection of webpages, that is, HTML/XHTML documents accessible via HTTP on the Internet; all publicly accessible websites in existence comprise the World Wide Web. ... AOHell was a tool which greatly simplified cracking online using AOL. Released in 1994 by a cracker known as Da Chronic, AOHell provided a number of utilities which ran on top of the America Online client software. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Application software is a defined subclass of computer software that employs the capabilities of a computer directly to a task that the user wishes to perform. ... In computing, a script kiddie (occasionally script bunny, script kitty, script kiddo or skiddie) is a derogatory term for inexperienced crackers who use scripts and programs developed by others, without knowing what they are or how they work, for the purpose of compromising computer accounts and files, and for launching... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... A mailbomb (or mail bomb), also called parcel bomb or letter bomb, is an explosive device sent via the postal service, and designed to explode when opened, injuring or killing the recipient, usually someone the sender has a personal grudge against, or more indiscriminately as part of a terrorist campaign. ... A KMail folder full of spam emails collected over a few days. ...

1995

• February: Kevin Mitnick is arrested again. This time the FBI accuses him of stealing 20,000 credit card numbers. Kevin Mitnick is incarcerated on charges of "wire fraud and illegal possession of computer files stolen from such companies as Motorola and Sun Microsystems" He is held in prison for four years without a trial.
• The movies The Net and Hackers are released.
• United States Department of Defense computers sustain 250,000 attacks by hackers.
• Hackers deface federal web sites.

The numbers found on credit cards have a certain amount of internal structure, and share a common numbering scheme. ... Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is an American international communications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. ... Sun Microsystems, Inc. ... The Net is a 1995 film directed by Irwin Winkler and starring Sandra Bullock, Jeremy Northam and Dennis Miller. ... Hackers - Poster 1 Hackers - Poster 2 Hackers - German Poster Hackers is a movie released in 1995 that follows the misfortunes of young hacker Dade Murphy (aka Crash Override/Zero Cool, played by Jonny Lee Miller), Kate (aka Acid Burn, played by Angelina Jolie) and their friends. ... The United States Department of Defense, abbreviated as DoD or DOD and sometimes called the Defense Department, is a civilian Cabinet organization of the United States government. ...

1996

• Kevin Poulsen is cleared of the military hacking charges and released. He starts a career as a freelance journalist.
• Hackers alter Web sites of the United States Department of Justice (August), the CIA (October), and the U.S. Air Force (December).
• Canadian hacker group, Brotherhood, breaks into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
• The U.S. General Accounting Office reports that hackers attempted to break into Defense Department computer files some 250,000 times in 1995 alone. About 65 percent of the attempts were successful, according to the report.
• The MP3 format gains popularity in the hacker world. Many hackers begin setting up sharing sites via FTP, Hotline, IRC and USEnet.

A freelancer or (freelance worker) is a self-employed person working in a profession or trade in which full-time employment is also common. ... This does not cite its references or sources. ... DOJ headquarters in Washington, D.C. Justice Department redirects here. ... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an American intelligence agency, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... Seal of the Air Force. ... Look up brotherhood in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), a Canadian crown corporation, is the country’s national public radio and television broadcaster. ...

1997

• A 15-year-old Croatian youth penetrates computers at a U.S. Air Force base in Guam.
• December: Information Security publishes first issue.
• Hackers get into Microsoft's Windows NT operating system.
• In response to the MP3 popularity, the Recording Industry Association of America begins cracking down on FTPs. The RIAA begins a campaign of lawsuits shutting down many of the owners of these sites including the more popular ripper/distrubutors The Maxx (Germany, Age 14), Chapel976 (USA, Age 15), Bulletboy (UK, Age 16), Sn4rf (Canada, Age 14) and others in their young teens via their ISPs. Their houses are raided and their computers and modems are taken. The RIAA fails to cut off the head of the MP3 beast and within a year and a half, Napster is released.

Seal of the Air Force. ... Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. ... An operating system (OS) is a computer program that manages the hardware and software resources of a computer. ...

1998

• A woman who goes by the handle Natasha Grigori started out in the early starts running a bulletin-board system for those involved in the unauthorized distribution of software. Now, at age “40-plus,” she’s the founder of antichildporn.org [1], a group of hackers who use their skills to track kiddie-porn distributors and pass the information on to law enforcement.
• January: Yahoo! notifies Internet users that anyone visiting its site in recent weeks might have downloaded a logic bomb and worm planted by hackers claiming a "logic bomb" will go off if Mitnick is not released from prison.
• January: Anti-hacker runs during Super Bowl XXXII
• February: The Internet Software Consortium proposes the use of DNSSEC (domain-name system security extensions) to secure DNS servers.
• During heightened tensions in the Persian Gulf, hackers touch off a string of attacks against Pentagon computers, dubbed the Solar Sunrise. This leads to the establishment of round-the-clock, online guard duty at major military computer sites. U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre called it "the most organized and systematic attack" on U.S. military systems to date^{[citation needed]}. An investigation points to two American teens. A 19-year-old Israeli hacker who calls himself The Analyzer (aka Ehud Tenenbaum) is eventually identified as their ringleader and arrested. Tenenbaum is later made chief technology officer of a computer consulting firm.
• March: Timothy Lloyd is indicted for planting a logic bomb on the network of Omega Engineering and causing millions in damage.
• Hackers alter The New York Times Web site, renaming it HFG (Hacking for Girlies). The hackers express anger at the arrest and imprisonment of Kevin Mitnick, the subject of the book "Takedown" co-authored by Times reporter John Markoff.
• Two hackers are sentenced to death by a court in China for breaking into a bank computer network and stealing 260,000 yuan ($31,400).
• June: Information Security publishes its first annual Industry Survey, finding that nearly three-quarters of organizations suffered a security incident in the previous year.
• July: Hackers break into United Nations Children Fund Web site threatening "holocaust."
• August: The hacking group CULT OF THE DEAD COW releases its Trojan horse program, Back Orifice at DEF CON. Once a user installs the Trojan horse on a machine running Windows 95 or Windows 98, the program allows unauthorized remote access of the machine.
• October: "U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno announces National Infrastructure Protection Center."
• December: L0pht testifies to the senate that it could shut down nationwide access to the Internet in less than 30 minutes.
• December 29: the Legions of the Underground (LoU) declared cyberwar on Iraq and China with the intention of disrupting and disabling internet infrastructure.

It has been suggested that counterfeit software be merged into this article or section. ... Yahoo! - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... This article is about Logic bombs, a type of malicious software code. ... A worm is an elongated soft-bodied invertebrate animal. ... Date January 25, 1998 Stadium Qualcomm Stadium City San Diego MVP Terrell Davis, Running back Favorite Packers by 11 1/2 National anthem Jewel Coin toss Joe Gibbs, Doug Williams, Eddie Robinson Referee Ed Hochuli Halftime show Boyz II Men, Smokey Robinson, The Temptations, and The Four Tops Attendance 68... Internet Software Consortium (ISC) was an organization that was founded by Rick Adams and Paul Vixie with funding from UUNET to develop and support a number of reference implementations of Internet software. ... The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) are a suite of IETF specifications for securing certain kinds of information provided by the Domain Name System (DNS) as used on Internet Protocol (IP) networks. ... The Domain Name System or DNS is a system that stores information about host names and domain names in a kind of distributed database on networks, such as the Internet. ... It has been suggested that Persian Gulf States be merged into this article or section. ... The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located at 48 N. Rotary Road, Arlington, Virginia 22211 (Map). ... John Hamre is the current president and CEO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a position he has held since April 2000. ... The armed forces of the United States of America consist of the United States Army United States Navy United States Air Force United States Marine Corps United States Coast Guard Note: The United States Coast Guard has both military and law enforcement functions. ... Ehud Tenenbaum (Hebrew: אהוד טננבאום), known as The Analyzer, is an Israeli hacker who became known after hacking into several computer systems based in the United States, including military ones. ... Ehud Tenenbaum (Hebrew: אהוד טננבאום), known as The Analyzer, is an Israeli hacker who became known after hacking into several computer systems based in the United States, including military ones. ... The Rt Hon. ... The New York Times is a newspaper published in New York City by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. ... The term Takedown may refer to: Takedown, the title of a book and film by John Markoff and Tsutomu Shimomura about the capture of Kevin Mitnick Takedown (grappling), a martial arts technique aimed at bringing the opponent to the ground Burnout 3: Takedown, an arcade game Bad Boys: Miami Takedown... John Markoff (born October 24, 1949) is an American writer and journalist. ... Concentration camp inmates during the Holocaust The Holocaust was Nazi Germanys systematic genocide (ethnic cleansing) of various ethnic, religious, national, and secular groups during World War II. Early elements include the Kristallnacht pogrom and the T-4 Euthanasia Program established by Hitler that killed some 200,000 people. ... CULT OF THE DEAD COW, also known as cDc, is a computer hacker and DIY media organization founded in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas. ... In the context of computer software, a Trojan horse is a malicious program that is disguised as or embedded within legitimate software. ... Back Orifice (often shortened to BO) is a controversial computer program designed for remote system administration. ... A defcon 13 human badge DEF CON is the worlds largest annual hacker convention, held every year in Las Vegas, Nevada. ... Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. ... Windows 98 (codenamed Memphis) is a graphical operating system released on June 25, 1998 by Microsoft and the successor to Windows 95. ... In telecommunication, the term remote access has the following meanings: 1. ... The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. ... Janet Reno (born July 21, 1938) was the 78th Attorney General of the United States (1993–2001), and was the first woman to hold that post. ... L0pht Heavy Industries (pronounced loft) was a famous hacker collective located in the Boston, Massachusetts area between 1992 and 2000. ... December 29 is the 363rd day of the year (364th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 2 days remaining. ... Cyberwar is a somewhat over-hyped term for a variety of uses of technology in warfare. ...

1999

• Software Security Goes Mainstream In the wake of Microsoft's Windows 98 release, 1999 becomes a banner year for security (and hacking). Hundreds of advisories and patches are released in response to newfound (and widely publicized) bugs in Windows and other commercial software products. A host of security software vendors release anti-hacking products for use on home computers.
• The Electronic Civil Disobedience project, an online political performance-art group, attacks the Pentagon calling it conceptual art and claiming it to be a protest against the U.S. support of the suppression of rebels in southern Mexico by the Mexican government. ECD uses the FloodNet software to bombard its opponents with access requests.
• Classified computer systems at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, come under attack from a number of locations around the world, but the attacks were detected and stopped by newly developed Defense Department systems.
• U.S. Information Agency Web site is hacked for the second time in six months. The hacker circumvented the agency's Internet security and damaged the hard drive, leaving behind the message "Crystal, I love you" and the signature "Zyklon."
• Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pennsylvania, says Defense Department computers are under a "coordinated, organized" attack from hackers. "You can basically say we are at war", he said.
• U.S. President Bill Clinton announces a $1.46 billion initiative to improve government computer security. The plan would establish a network of intrusion detection monitors for certain federal agencies and encourage the private sector to do the same.
• Kevin Mitnick, detained since 1995 on charges of computer fraud, signs plea agreement.
• Made-for-TV movie Pirates of Silicon Valley is shown on TNT, which starts out with the Blue Box hacking days of Steve Wozniak.
• January 7: an international coalition of hackers (including CULT OF THE DEAD COW, 2600 's staff, Phrack's staff, L0pht, and the Chaos Computer Club) issued a joint statement ([2]) condemning the LoU's declaration of war. The LoU responded by withdrawing its declaration.
• March: The Melissa worm is released and quickly becomes the most costly malware outbreak to date.
• April: The U.S. Justice Department declines to prosecute former CIA Director John Deutch for keeping 31 secret files on his home computer after he left office in 1996.
• July: CULT OF THE DEAD COW releases Back Orifice 2000 at DEF CON
• September: Level Seven hacks The US Embassy in China's Website and places racist, anti-government slogans on embassy site in regards to 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. [3]
• October: American Express introduces the "Blue" smart card, the industry's first chip-based credit card in the US.
• Unidentified hackers seized control of a British military communication satellite and demanded money in return for control of the satellite.
• December: David L. Smith pleads guilty to creating and releasing the Melissa virus. It's one of the first times a person is prosecuted for writing a virus.

1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... A computer bug is an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program that prevents it from working as intended, or produces an incorrect result. ... An art group refers to an association of artists who may work (or live) communally, for the purpose of facilitating the creation of art, either that belonging to the individual, or the collective. ... Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs (1965) Conceptual art is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. ... The Zapatista Tactical FloodNet is a Java Applet that assists in the execution of virtual sit-ins by automatically reloading the targeted website several times every minute. ... Kelly Air Force Base was a United States Air Force base located in San Antonio, Texas. ... Nickname: Alamo City; River City Location in the state of Texas Coordinates: Counties Bexar County Mayor Phil Hardberger Area    - City 1067. ... Official language(s) None See: Languages of Texas Capital Austin Largest city Houston Area  Ranked 2nd  - Total 268,581 sq mi (695,622 km²)  - Width 773 miles (1,244 km)  - Length 790 miles (1,270 km)  - % water 2. ... The United States Information Agency (USIA), which existed from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to what it called public diplomacy. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Curt Weldon (born July 22, 1947) is an American politician. ... William Jefferson Bill Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. ... Computer security is the current computer science collaboration of the week! Please help improve it to featured article standard. ... A plea agreement or plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case in which a prosecutor and a defendant arrange to settle the case against the defendant. ... A television movie (also known as a TV film, TV movie, TV-movie, feature-length drama, made-for-TV movie, movie of the week (MOTW or MOW), single drama, telemovie, telefilm, or two-hour-long drama) is a film that is produced for and originally distributed by a television network. ... Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999) is an unauthorized made-for-television docudrama written and directed by Martyn Burke. ... Turner Network Television, usually referred to as TNT, is a cable TV network created by media mogul Ted Turner and launched with a showing of his favorite film, Gone with the Wind, on October 3, 1988. ... The blue box previously owned by Steve Wozniak, on display at the Computer History Museum. ... Stephen Gary Woz Wozniak (born August 11, 1950 in San Jose, California) is an American computer engineer turned philanthropist. ... January 7 is the seventh day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... CULT OF THE DEAD COW, also known as cDc, is a computer hacker and DIY media organization founded in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas. ... 2600 may refer to: 2600 Hz, the tone used by a blue box to gain control of telephone networks 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, a magazine named after the above tone The Atari 2600 was a popular video game console 2600 (year) The ARP 2600 was a synthesizer The stable public... Phrack is an underground ezine made by and for hackers that has been around since November 17, 1985. ... L0pht Heavy Industries (pronounced loft) was a famous hacker collective located in the Boston, Massachusetts area between 1992 and 2000. ... The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is one of the biggest and most influental hacker organisations. ... The Melissa worm, also known as Mailissa, Simpsons, Kwyjibo, or Kwejeebo, is a computer worm that also functions as a macro virus, hence making it a multipartite virus. // History First found on March 26, 1999, Melissa shut down Internet mail systems that got clogged with infected e-mails propogating from... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an American intelligence agency, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... John M. Deutch was a figure of a great deal of controversy as head of the CIA. John Mark Deutch (born July 27, 1938) was the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from May 10, 1995 until December 14, 1996. ... CULT OF THE DEAD COW, also known as cDc, is a computer hacker and DIY media organization founded in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas. ... Back Orifice 2000 (often shortened to BO2k) is a computer program designed for remote system administration. ... A defcon 13 human badge DEF CON is the worlds largest annual hacker convention, held every year in Las Vegas, Nevada. ... The Level Seven Crew, also known as Level Seven, Level 7 or L7, was a hacking group during the mid to late 90s. ... Aftermath at the Nairobi embassy. ... American Express (NYSE: AXP) is a diversified global financial services company, headquartered in New York City. ... Smart card used for health insurance in France. ... In March of 1999, David L. Smith, a 31-year old New Jersey programmer, released the Melissa virus in Aberdeen Township, New Jersey. ... Groups I: dsDNA viruses II: ssDNA viruses III: dsRNA viruses IV: (+)ssRNA viruses V: (-)ssRNA viruses VI: ssRNA-RT viruses VII: dsDNA-RT viruses A virus (Latin, poison) is a microscopic particle that can infect the cells of a biological organism. ...

2000s

2000

• January: A Russian cracker attempts to extort $100,000 from online music retailer CD Universe, threatening to expose thousands of customers' credit card numbers, posting them on a website after the attempt to extort money from the company failed. Barry Schlossberg (AKA Lou Cipher) is successful at getting $1.4M from CD Universe for "services rendered", in an attempt to "catch the Russian hacker".
• Second week of February: In the first and one of the biggest denial-of-service attacks to date, Canadian hacker MafiaBoy launches successful distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack taking down several high-profile Web sites, including Amazon, CNN and Yahoo!.
• Activists in Pakistan and the Middle East deface Web sites belonging to the Indian and Israeli governments to protest oppression in Kashmir and Palestine.
• Hackers break into Microsoft's corporate network and access source code for the latest versions of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office software. It is later released to several filesharing networks. The Register splashes with the immortal (and suppositional) headline: 'M$ hacked! Russian Mafia swipes WinME source'.
• March: President Clinton says that he doesn't use e-mail to communicate with his daughter Chelsea Clinton at college because he doesn't think the medium is secure.
• April: The U.S. Department of Justice unveils a portal that notes the government's position on Internet security and privacy issues, tracks prosecution of cybercriminals and provides guidelines for cybercrime investigations.
• May: a new virus appeared that spread rapidly around the globe. The "I Love You" virus infected image and sound files and spread quickly by causing copies of itself to be sent to all individuals in an address book.
• June: President Clinton signs the "Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce" (E-Sign) into law, making digital signatures legally binding.
• June: The Honeynet Project, led by Lance Spitzner, launches, collecting hacking intelligence through a network of decoy servers.
• July: The SANS Institute releases its first "Top 10 Vulnerabilities" list, denoting the most prevalent problems exploited by hackers.
• Jennifer Granick is an in-demand lawyer who explains hackers’ rights to them at conventions.
• A 19-year-old Midwestern law student who calls herself ViXen900 is a member of the HNC hackers’ group and advises them on legal issues.
• Kevin Mitnick is released from prison.

This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ... Credit cards A credit card system is a type of retail transaction settlement and credit system, named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. ... This page as shown in the AOL 9. ... In computer security, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. ... MafiaBoy was the Internet alias of a 15-year-old high-school student from the upscale neighborhood of West Island in Montreal, Canada. ... A denial-of-service attack (also, DoS attack) is an attack on a computer system or network that causes a loss of service to users, typically the loss of network connectivity and services by consuming the bandwidth of the victim network or overloading the computational resources of the victim system. ... Amazon. ... The Cable News Network, commonly known as CNN, is a major cable television network founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. ... Yahoo! - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Activism, in a general sense, can be described as intentional action to bring about social or political change. ... A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ... Kashmir (or Cashmere) may refer to: Kashmir region, the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent India, Kashmir conflict, the territorial dispute between India, Pakistan, and the China over the Kashmir region. ... The West Bank map The Gaza Strip map Palestinian territories is one of a number of terms used to describe, from Arab point of view, areas captured by Israel in the Six-day War of 1967, whose political status has been the subject of negotiations between Israel and the Palestine... Source code (commonly just source or code) is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. ... Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of operating systems by Microsoft. ... Microsoft Office is a suite of productivity programs created or purchased by Microsoft and developed for Microsoft Windows, and Apple Computers Mac OS and Mac OS X operating systems. ... Current logo of The Register. ... Order: 42nd President Term of Office: January 20, 1993–January 20, 2001 Preceded by: George H. W. Bush Succeeded by: George W. Bush Date of birth: August 19, 1946 Place of birth: Hope, Arkansas Date of death: Place of death: First Lady: Hillary Rodham Clinton Political party: Democratic Vice... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... In the White House: Chelsea (lower right), together with her parents, Bill and Hillary Clinton. ... The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is a Cabinet department in the United States government designed to enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to keep their lives and personal affairs out of public view, or to control the flow of information about themselves. ... Cybercrime is a term used broadly to describe criminal activity in which computers or networks are a tool, a target, or a place of criminal activity. ... Groups I: dsDNA viruses II: ssDNA viruses III: dsRNA viruses IV: (+)ssRNA viruses V: (-)ssRNA viruses VI: ssRNA-RT viruses VII: dsDNA-RT viruses A virus (Latin, poison) is a microscopic particle that can infect the cells of a biological organism. ... The ILOVEYOU worm, also known as VBS/Loveletter and Love Bug worm, is a computer worm written in VBScript. ... An address book or a name and address book (NAB) is a book or a collection of data storing contact details (for example: address, telephone number, e-mail address, fax number, mobile phone number). ... // Balancing scales are symbolic of how law mediates peoples interests For other senses of this word, see Law (disambiguation). ... The SANS Institute (SysAdmin, Audit, Networking, and Security) is a trade name owned by the for-profit Escal Institute of Advanced Technologies. ... Jennifer Granick Jennifer Stisa Granick is an American attorney and lecturer at Stanford Law School, where she is Executive Director at the Center for Internet and Society. ... Kevin Mitnick Kevin David Mitnick was convicted of wire fraud and of breaking into the computer systems of Fujitsu, Motorola, Nokia, and Sun Microsystems. ...

2001

• Microsoft becomes the prominent victim of a new type of crack that attacks the domain name server. In these denial-of-service attacks, the DNS paths that take users to Microsoft's Web sites are corrupted. The hack is detected within a few hours, but prevents millions of users from reaching Microsoft Web pages for two days.
• January: Port7Alliance is born.
• February: A Dutch cracker releases the Anna Kournikova virus, initiating a wave of viruses that tempts users to open the infected attachment by promising a sexy picture of the Russian tennis star.
• March: FBI agent Robert P. Hanssen is charged with using his computer skills and FBI access to spy for the Russians.
• March: The L10n worm is discovered in the wild attacking older versions of BIND DNS.
• April: FBI agents trick two Russian crackers into coming to the U.S. and revealing how they were cracking U.S. banks.
• May:
  • Spurred by elevated tensions in Sino-American diplomatic relations, U.S. and Chinese hackers engage in skirmishes of Web defacements that many dub "The Sixth Cyberwar".
  • Crackers begin using "pulsing" zombies, a new DDoS method that has zombie machines send random pings to targets rather than flooding them, making it hard to stop attacks.
  • AV experts identify Sadmind, a new cross-platform worm that uses compromised Sun Solaris boxes to attack Windows NT servers.
• July: Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov is arrested at the annual Def Con hacker convention. He is the first person criminally charged with violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
• August: Code Red worm, infects tens of thousands of machines.
• September: The World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks spark lawmakers to pass a barrage of anti terrorism laws many of which group Hackers as terrorists and remove many long standing personal freedoms in the name of safety.
• September: Nimda, a new memory-only worm, wreaks havoc on the Internet, quickly eclipsing Code Red's infection rate and recovery cost.
• November:
  • Microsoft, other major software vendors, and commercial security research organizations propose "responsible disclosure" guidelines as an alternative to "full disclosure" of security vulnerabilities.
  • The European Union adopts the controversial cybercrime treaty, which makes the possession and use of hacking tools illegal.

The Domain Name System or DNS is a system that stores information about host names and domain names in a kind of distributed database on networks, such as the Internet. ... Port7alliance was a North American hacker group responsible for production of the internet based magazine Radical Future. ... Anna Sergeyevna Kournikova (Russian: Анна Сергеевна Курникова ( ), Ánna Sergéyevna Kúrnikova; born June 7, 1981) is a retired Russian professional tennis player and model. ... A tennis net Tennis is a game played between either two players (singles) or two teams of two players (doubles). Players use a stringed racquet to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponents court. ... The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a Federal police force which is the principal investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ... Robert Hanssen Robert Philip Hanssen (born on April 18, 1944) was an FBI agent who was convicted of spying for the Soviet Union, later Russia. ... Spy and secret agent redirect here; for alternate use, see Spy (disambiguation) and Secret agent (disambiguation). ... The L10n worm (usually pronounced lion) was a Linux worm that spread in 2001 by exploiting a buffer overflow in the BIND DNS server. ... It has been suggested that Geodns be merged into this article or section. ... Pulsing zombies is a term referring to a special denial-of-service attack. ... Dmitry Sklyarov (Дмитрий Скляров) (born December 18, 1974) is a Russian computer programmer best known for his 2001 run-in with American law enforcement over software copyright restrictions. ... The Code Red worm was a computer worm released via the Internet on July 13, 2001 affecting computers running Microsofts Internet Information Server (IIS) web server. ...

2002

• January: Bill Gates decrees that Microsoft will secure its products and services, and kicks off a massive internal training and quality control campaign.
• February: As part of its Trustworthy Computing initiative, Microsoft shuts down all Windows development, sending more than 8,000 programmers to security training.
• April: The U.S. Army initiates the "Mannheim Project", an effort to better consolidate and secure the military's IT assets from cyber-warfare.
• May: Klez.H, a variant of the worm discovered in November 2001, becomes the biggest malware outbreak in terms of machines infected, but causes little monetary damage.
• June: The Bush administration files a bill to create the Department of Homeland Security, which, among other things, will be responsible for protecting the nation's critical IT infrastructure.
• July: An Information Security survey finds that most security practitioners favor full disclosure because it helps them defend against hacker exploits and puts pressure on software vendors to improve their products.
• August: Researcher Chris Paget publishes a paper describing "shatter attacks", detailing how Windows' unauthenticated messaging system can be used to take over a machine. The paper raises questions about how securable Windows could ever be.
• September: The White House's Office of Homeland Security releases a draft of the "National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace", which many criticize as being too weak.
• October: The International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium - (ISC)2 - confers its 10,000th CISSP certification.

This article is about the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation. ... This page covers security in the sense of protection from hostile action. ... Training refers to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and attitudes as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relates to specific useful skills. ... In engineering and manufacturing, quality control and quality engineering are involved in developing systems to ensure products or services are designed and produced to meet or exceed customer requirements. ... The Army is the branch of the United States armed forces which has primary responsibility for land-based military operations. ... Cyber-warfare is the use of computers and the internet in conducting warfare in cyberspace. ... Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system, without the owners informed consent. ... The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a Cabinet department of the federal government of the United States that is concerned with protecting the American homeland and the safety of American citizens. ... Information Technology (IT)[1] is a broad subject concerned with the use of technology in managing and processing information, especially in large organizations. ... Information security deals with several different trust aspects of information. ... Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ... A vendor is one who sells something. ... In computing, a shatter attack is a programming technique employed by hackers on Microsoft Windows operating systems that can be used to bypass security restrictions between processes. ... North façade of the White House, seen from Pennsylvania Avenue. ... On October 8, 2001, in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, President George W. Bush announced the establishment of an executive-level Office of Homeland Security to coordinate homeland security efforts, to be headed by Governor Tom Ridge with the title of Assistant to the President for Homeland Security. ... The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, a component of the larger National Strategy for Homeland Security, was drafted by the Department of Homeland Security in reaction to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. ... Certified Information Systems Security Professional (or CISSP) is a vendor-neutral certification governed by the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium ((ISC)2). ...

2003

• March: CULT OF THE DEAD COW and Hacktivismo are given permission by the United States Department of Commerce to export software utilizing strong encryption.
• August 23: Jesus Oquendo "sil" of AntiOffline releases "BRAT" Border Router Attack Tool as part of "Theories in Denials of Service in an effort to make administrators aware of the possibility of a worm attack tool capable of breaking backbone routes on the Internet
• December 18: Milford Man pleas guilty to hacking.

CULT OF THE DEAD COW, also known as cDc, is a computer hacker and DIY media organization founded in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas. ... Hacktivismo logo Hacktivismo is an offshoot of the CULT OF THE DEAD COW, whose beliefs include access to information as a basic human right. ... The United States Department of Commerce is a Cabinet department of the United States government concerned with promoting economic growth. ... August 23 is the 235th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (236th in leap years), with 130 days remaining. ... In the Gregorian Calendar, December 18 is the 352nd day of the year (353rd in leap years), at which point there will be 13 days remaining to the end of the year. ...

2004

• March: Myron Tereshchuk is arrested for attempting to extort $17 million from Micropatent. FBI agents find explosives and biological weapons in the course of the raid.
• July 13: InformationLeak.net [4] is born and encompasses the ideals held by many of the groups from the so called golden age of hacking.

Micropatent is a subsidiary of the Thomson Corporation. ... July 13 is the 194th day (195th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 171 days remaining. ...

2005

• September 15: An unnamed teenager is sentenced to 11 months for gaining access to T-Mobile USA's network and exploiting Paris Hilton's sidekick. It turned out this teen was also responsible for breaking into data broker LexisNexis' system in January.
• November 4: Jeanson James Ancheta, who prosecutors say was a member of the "Botmaster Underground", a group of script kiddies who are mostly noted for their excessive use of bot attacks and propagating vast amounts of spam, was taken into custody after being lured to FBI offices in Los Angeles. [5]

September 15 is the 258th day of the year (259th in leap years). ... T-Mobile logo T-Mobile is a multinational mobile phone operator. ... Paris Whitney Hilton (born February 17, 1981) is an heiress to the Hilton Hotel fortune, as well as her father, Richard Hiltons, real estate fortune. ... The Danger Hiptop is a GPRS cell phone with wireless Internet capabilities and some functionality similar to a PDA. The Hiptop is sold by T-Mobile in the United States under the name T-Mobile Sidekick. ... Lexis redirects here. ... In computing, a script kiddie (occasionally script bunny, script kitty, script kiddo or skiddie) is a derogatory term for inexperienced crackers who use scripts and programs developed by others, without knowing what they are or how they work, for the purpose of compromising computer accounts and files, and for launching... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

2006

• January: One of the few worms to take after the old form of malware, destruction of data rather than the accumulation of zombie networks to launch attacks from, is discovered. It had various names, including Kama Sutra (used by most media reports), Black Worm, Mywife, Blackmal, Nyxem version D, Kapser, KillAV, Grew and CME-24. The worm would spread through e-mail client address books, and would search for documents and fill them with garbage, instead of deleting them to confuse the user. It would also hit a web page counter when it took control, allowing the programmer who created it as well as the world to track the progress of the worm. It would replace documents with random garbage on the third of every month. It was hyped by the media but actually affected relatively few computers, and was not a real threat for most users.
• February: Direct-to-video film The Net 2.0 is released, as a sequel to The Net, following the same plotline, but with updated technology used in the film, using different characters, and different complications. The same director of The Net is the director of The Net 2.0.
• May: Jeanson James Ancheta receives a 57 month prison sentence, and is ordered to pay damages amounting to $15,000.00 to the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake and the Defense Information Systems Agency, for damage done due to DDoS attacks and hacking. He will be on supervised release for three years with limited access to computers and the Internet as he works on repaying those agencies. Ancheta also had to forfeit his gains to the government, which include $60,000 in cash, a BMW, and computer equipment.
• September: Viodentia releases FairUse4WM tool which would remove DRM information off WMA music downloaded off Yahoo music and Napster.
• October: Jesus Oquendo releases Asteroid, a SIP Denial of Service testing tool. It broke all versions of Asterisk until 1.2.13. Asteroid is also known to affect certain SIP Softphones, SIP Phones and possibly other products using the SIP protocol. It was used in Henning Schulzrinne's Columbia University seminars. See MITRE CVE-2006-5444 and CVE-2006-5445