Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker

partner, with the main goals of learning more about how computer systems
and telecommunication systems worked and being successful at hacking
into anything, I was being mobbed like a rock star. It was the last thing I’d
ever expected.
One of the most personally meaningful memories of this time, however,
was when the book tour took me to New York and I finally got to meet the
2600
supporters who had cheered me through some of my darkest hours via
the “Free Kevin” movement. When I was on my rough ride through the
criminal justice system, it meant the world to me that there was an army of
people working tirelessly to support me. It gave me more hope and courage
than they could ever know. I can never express the true depth of my
gratitude to these wonderful people.
One of the landmark moments in my life after prison had to be the day
when I was finally allowed to use computers again, 
eight years
after I was
first arrested. It was a festive day filled with family and friends from all
over the world.

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A live cable TV show called 
The Screen Savers
, with Leo Laporte and
Patrick Norton, asked to televise my first interaction with the Internet.
On the show with me were Eric Corley, who had headed up the “Free
Kevin” movement and repeatedly proved himself to be my staunchest
supporter, and Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple, who had become one of
my closest friends. They both came on to “help” me navigate online after so
many years away.
As a surprise, the Woz presented me with a brand-new Apple
PowerBook G4 wrapped in paper covered with a funny cartoon of a guy
trying to reach a computer with a stick through the bars of his jail cell. In
many ways, getting that laptop from the father of the personal computer
was the moment I knew my life was finally starting to turn around.
It has now been eleven years since I walked out of prison. I’ve built a
consulting practice that provides a steady flow of business. It has taken me
to every part of the United States and every continent except Antarctica.
My work today is, to me, nothing short of a miracle. Try to name some
illegal activity that, with permission, can be carried out legitimately and
benefit everyone. Only one comes to mind: ethical hacking.
I went to prison for my hacking. Now people hire me to do the same
things I went to prison for, but in a legal and beneficial way.
I would never have expected it, but in the years since my release, I’ve
served as a keynote speaker at countless industry events and corporate
meetings, written for the 
Harvard Business Review
, and addressed students
and faculty at the Harvard Law School. Whenever some hacker makes the
news, I’m asked to comment on Fox, CNN, or other news media. I’ve
appeared on 
60 Minutes, Good Morning America
, and many, many other
programs. I’ve even been hired by government agencies like the FAA, the
Social Security Administration, and—despite my criminal history—an FBI
organization, InfraGard.
People often ask if I’ve completely kicked the hacking habit.
Often I still keep hackers’ hours—up late, eating breakfast when
everyone else has already finished lunch, busy on my computer until three
or four in the morning.
And I am hacking again… but in a different way. For Mitnick Security
Consulting LLC, I do ethical hacking—using my hacking skills to test

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companies’ security defenses by identifying weaknesses in their physical,
technical, and human-based security controls so they can shore up their
defenses before the bad guys exploit them. I do this for companies around
the globe, and have been giving some fifteen to twenty corporate keynotes a
year. My firm also vets security products for companies before new items
are released to the market, to see if they live up to the claims being made
for them. My company also provides security awareness training primarily
focusing on mitigating the threat of social-engineering attacks.
What I do now fuels the same passion for hacking I felt during all those
years of unauthorized access. The difference can be summed up in one
word: 
authorization
.
I don’t need authorization to get in.
It’s the word that instantly transforms me from the World’s Most Wanted
Hacker to one of the Most Wanted Security Experts in the world. Just like
magic.

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