Kevin Mitnick was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer more than a year ago. Due to complications, he died on July 16 as mentioned by KnowBe4, the cybersecurity training company he co-owned.
Kevin David Mitnick was an American computer security consultant, author, and convicted hacker. He is best known for his high-profile 1995 arrest and five years in prison for various computer and communications-related crimes.
Mitnick’s pursuit, arrest, trial, and sentence, along with the associated journalism, books, and films were all controversial. After his release from prison, he ran his own security firm, Mitnick Security Consulting, LLC, and was also involved with other computer security businesses.
Kevin Mitnick was born on August 6, 1963, in Van Nuys, California. He grew up in Los Angeles, California. At age 12, Mitnick convinced a bus driver to tell him where he could buy his own ticket punch for “a school project”.
He was then able to ride any bus in the greater Los Angeles area using unused transfer slips he found in a dumpster next to the bus company’s garage.
Mitnick attended James Monroe High School in North Hills. At this time, he became an amateur radio operator with the nickname “Condor”. The name was inspired by the movie ‘Three Days of the Condor’. He was later enrolled at Los Angeles Pierce College and USC.
Mitnick gained unauthorized access to a computer network in 1979 at 16 years of age when a friend gave him the telephone number for the Ark, the computer system that Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) used for developing its RSTS/E operating system software.
He broke into the DEC computer network and copied the company’s software. He was charged and convicted in 1988 for this crime and was sentenced to 12 months in prison followed by 3 years of supervised release.
After a well-publicized pursuit, the FBI arrested Mitnick on February 15, 1995, at his apartment in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was charged with federal offenses related to a two-and-a-half-year period of computer hacking which included computer and wire fraud.
During his arrest, cloned cellular phones, more than 100 cloned cellular phone codes, and multiple pieces of false identification were found with him.
