Timeline of computer security hacker history

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

This is a timeline of computer security hacker history. Hacking and system cracking appeared with the first electronic computers. Below are some important events in the history of hacking and cracking.

[edit] 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.

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.

[edit] 1970 to 1979

[edit] 1971

  • John T. Draper (later nicknamed Captain Crunch) discovered with his friend Joe Engressia that a toy whistle that was, at the time, packaged in boxes of Cap'n Crunch Cereal could emit a tone at precisely 2600 hertz, the same frequency that was used by AT&T long lines to indicate that a trunk line was ready and available to route a new call. This would effectively disconnect one end of the trunk, allowing the still-connected side to enter an operator mode. Experimenting with this whistle inspired Draper to build blue boxes, electronic devices capable of reproducing other tones used by the phone company. He was sentenced in October 1971 to five years' probation for toll fraud.

[edit] 1972

[edit] 1973

[edit] 1978

[edit] 1980 to 1989

[edit] 1981

[edit] 1982

[edit] 1983

  • The group KILOBAUD is formed in February, kicking off a series of other hacker groups which form soon after.
  • The 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.
  • The 414s are caught and investigated by the FBI. Although most members are not charged with a crime, they gain widespread media attention[1][2], eventually becoming a cover story of Newsweek entitled "Beware: Hackers at play". [3]
  • The U.S. House of Representatives begins hearings on computer security hacking.[4]
  • In his Turing Award lecture, Ken Thompson mentions "hacking" and describes a security exploit that he calls a "Trojan horse". [5]
  • Jeremiah Peek and Jerusha McDonald were hired by the FBI and the Secret Service discreetly informed and titled for a position which was never publicly described. It was believed by the media that it was to help fight highly fraudulent email schemes and computer hackers. In the end they caught hundreds of perpetrators all over the world including some of America's most wanted criminals.

[edit] 1984

[edit] 1985

  • KILOBAUD is re-organized into The P.H.I.R.M., and begins sysopping hundreds of BBSs through-out the United States, Canada, and Europe.
  • The online 'zine Phrack is established.
  • The Hacker's Handbook is published in the UK.
  • Roberto Soto Prieto, A Colombian, intercepted and hijacked a Telex line to send wires from Colombian govt to banks in the UK and from there to other parts of the world, in total 13.5M USD were moved from Colombian Govt. Accounts.

[edit] 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.
  • Astronomer Clifford Stoll plays a pivotal role in tracking down hacker Markus Hess, events later covered in Stoll's 1990 book The Cuckoo's Egg.[6]

[edit] 1987

[edit] 1988

[edit] 1989

[edit] 1990 to 1999

[edit] 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. However, this attracted attention from the Federal Government, which proceeded to arrest them.
  • With LOD and MOD gone, the P.H.I.R.M. state that they are too high profile, and disband, marking the end of the dominating 1980's hacker groups.

[edit] 1991

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 email bombs and their chat rooms disrupted with spam messages.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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/distributors 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.

[edit] 1998

  • 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. 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.

[edit] 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 ([1]) 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. [2]
  • 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.
  • A hacker interviewed by Hilly Rose during the Art Bell Coast-to-Coast Radio Show exposes a plot by Al-Qaida to derail Amtrak trains. This results in ALL trains being forcibly stopped over Y2K as a safety measure.

[edit] 2000 to 2008

[edit] 2000

  • May: The ILOVEYOU worm, also known as VBS/Loveletter and Love Bug worm, is a computer worm written in VBScript. It infected millions of computers worldwide within a few hours of its release. It is considered to be one of the most damaging worms ever.

[edit] 2001

  • Microsoft becomes the prominent victim of a new type of hack 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.
  • 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.
  • April: FBI agents trick two Russian crackers into coming to the U.S. and revealing how they were Hacking U.S. banks [3].
  • 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".
  • 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.


[edit] 2002

  • January: Bill Gates decrees that Microsoft will secure its products and services, and kicks off a massive internal training and quality control campaign.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • October: The International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium - (ISC)2 - confers its 10,000th CISSP certification.

[edit] 2003

[edit] 2004

  • March: Myron Tereshchuk is arrested for attempting to extort $17 million from Micropatent.

[edit] 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.
  • November 3: Jeanson James Ancheta, whom prosecutors say was a member of the "Botmaster Underground", a group of script kiddies 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. [4]

[edit] 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 director of The Net 2.0, Charles Winkler, is son of Irwin Winkler, the director of The Net.
  • May: Jeanson James Ancheta receives a 57 month prison sentence, [5] 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. Ancheta also had to forfeit his gains to the government, which include $60,000 in cash, a BMW, and computer equipment [6].
  • May: Largest Defacement in Web History is performed by the Turkish hacker iSKORPiTX who successfully hacked 21,549 websites in one shot. [7]
  • September: Viodentia releases FairUse4WM tool which would remove DRM information off WMA music downloaded from music services such as Yahoo Unlimited, Napster, Rhapsody Music and Urge.
  • 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

[edit] 2007

  • May 17: Estonia Estonia recovers from massive denial-of-service attack[10]
  • May 31: Estonia Who's really behind the cyber-war on Estonia?[11]
  • June 13: FBI Operation Bot Roast finds over 1 million botnet victims[12]
  • October 7: Trend Micro website successfully hacked by Turkish hacker Janizary[16]
  • November 29: FBI FBI Operation Bot Roast II: 1 million infected PCs, $20 million in losses and 8 indictments[17]

[edit] 2008

  • January 18: Project Chanology Anon attacks Scientology website servers around the world. Private documents are stolen from Scientology computers and distributed over the Internet.


  • January 30: [bildirgec.org] website hacked by Turkish Hacker internetcafecocugu.
  • March 7: 20-something Chinese hackers claim to have gained access to the world's most sensitive sites, including The Pentagon. They operate from a bare apartment on a Chinese island.[18]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Detroit Free Press, September 27, 1983 
  2. ^ Elmer-DeWitt, Philip (Aug. 29, 1983), “The 414 Gang Strikes Again”, Time magazine: p. 75, <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,949797,00.html> 
  3. ^ “Beware: Hackers at play”, Newsweek: pp. 42-46,48, September 5, 1983 
  4. ^ Timeline: The U.S. Government and Cybersecurity. Washington Post (2002). Retrieved on 2006-04-14.
  5. ^ Thompson, Ken (October 1983). "Reflections on Trusting Trust" (PDF). 1983 Turing Award Lecture, ACM. 
  6. ^ Cliff Stoll (1989). The cuckoo's egg. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-370-31433-6. 
  7. ^ Burger, R.: "Computer viruses - a high tech disease", Abacus/Data Becker GmbH (1988), ISBN 1-55755-043-3
  8. ^ Spafford, E.H.: "The Internet Worm Program: An Analysis", Purdue Technical Report CSD-TR-823 (undated)
  9. ^ Eichin, M.W. and Rochlis, J.A.: "With Microscope and Tweezers: An Analysis of the Internet Virus of November 1988", MIT(1989)
  10. ^ Estonia recovers from massive denial-of-service attack - Network World
  11. ^ Who's really behind the cyber-war on Estonia? |NetworkWorld.com Community
  12. ^ FBI: Operation Bot Roast finds over 1 million botnet victims |NetworkWorld.com Community
  13. ^ McMillan, Robert. "Pentagon shuts down systems after cyberattack", InfoWorld, IDG, June 21, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-03-10. 
  14. ^ Aitoro, Jill R.. "Defense officials still concerned about data lost in 2007 network attack", Government Executive, National Journal Group, March 5, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-10. 
  15. ^ BM'nin sitesi hacklendi |Haber'in Doğru Adresi, Haber, Yerel Haber, Siyaset Haberleri, Sondakika Haberleri, Gazeteler, Haberler
  16. ^ Trendmicro.com Hacklendi
  17. ^ FBI ‘Bot Roast II: 1 million infected PCs, $20 million in losses and 8 indictments |NetworkWorld.com Community
  18. ^ "Chinese hackers: No site is safe", CNN, March 7, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-07. 

[edit] Further reading

  • Allan Lundell (1989). Virus! The secret world of computer invaders that breed and destroy. Wayne A. Yacco. ISBN 0-8092-4437-3. 
  • Bill Landreth (1989[1985]). Out of the Inner Circle. Tempus Books of Microsoft Press. ISBN 1-55615-223-X. 
  • Owen Bowcott and Sally Hamilton (1990). Beating the System: Hackers, phreakers and electronic spies. Bloomsbury. ISBN 0-7475-05136. 
  • Philip Fites, Peter Johnston and Martin Kratz (1989). The computer virus crisis. Van Nostrand Reinhold. ISBN 0-442-28532-0. 
  • Bruce Sterling (1992). The Hacker Crackdown: Law and disorder on the electronic frontier. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-017734-5. 
  • Steve Gold (1989). Hugo Cornwall's New Hacker's Handbook. London: Century Hutchinson Ltd. ISBN 0-7126-3454-1.