Kevin Mitnick, one of the most famous hackers in the history of cybersecurity, died Sunday after a more than yearlong battle with pancreatic cancer, his family said in a published obituary. He was 59.
Mitnick’s running around was legendary, and several movies were inspired by him. The first, “WarGames,” starring Matthew Broderick, was based in part on allegations that Mitnick managed to hack into U.S. Aerospace Defense Command computer systems as a teenager. He denied doing so.
Mitnick was arrested for stealing $1 million worth of software owned by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1988. He was sentenced to one year in prison and three years probation, but a new arrest warrant was issued in 1995 for violating that probation. Mitnick went on the run and broke into the computer systems of multiple businesses, cell phone companies and educational institutions, according to the federal indictment filed against him.
Mitnick and his defenders insisted throughout that time that he was harmless, that he wasn’t trying to hurt anyone or profit financially.
“I was an old-school hacker, I was doing it out of intellectual curiosity,” Mitnick told Wired magazine in a 2008 interview. But federal authorities were so concerned about his abilities that when he was jailed again in 1995, he was held in solitary confinement for a time for fear that even proximity to a phone might allow him to continue hacking, Mitnick told CNN.
In 1999, Mitnick and federal prosecutors reached a deal to plead guilty to seven felonies, including wire fraud and computer damage. The deal included a 46-month prison sentence and a ban from “working in any position in which he has access to computers or computer hardware or software” for a period of probation, but he was released in 2000 thanks to credit for time already served.
Mitnick published a memoir about his hacking career, “Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker,” in 2011.
After his time in prison, Mitnick became a white hat hacker, using his expertise to legally help companies track down people trying to break into their systems.
For the past decade, he was the Chief Hacking Officer and part owner of tech security firm KnowBe4, founded by his close friend and business partner Stu Sjouwerman.
“I made some really stupid mistakes in my youth that I regret,” Mitnick told CNN in a 2005 interview. “I’m lucky that I was given a second chance and was able to use these skills to help the community.”
“Kevin was a dear friend to me and to many of us here at KnowBe4,” Sjouwerman said in a statement. “He is truly a luminary in the development of the cybersecurity industry, but most of all, Kevin was simply a wonderful human being and will be greatly missed.”
A funeral for Mitnick is scheduled to be held Aug. 1 in Las Vegas, his company said. He is survived by his wife Kimberley, who is pregnant with their first child, according to the family.