The Ghost With a Grudge
The Ghost With a Grudge: How the Impact Team Destroyed Ashley Madison and Vanished July 12, 2015. Employees at Ashley Madison powered on their computers. AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” blasted from their speakers. A ransom message filled their screens. The Impact Team had arrived. Their demand was simple. Shut down Ashley Madison and Established Men within 30 […]
The Max Headroom Signal Hijacking
The Max Headroom Signal Hijacking: Television’s Greatest Unsolved Hack On November 22, 1987, thousands of Chicago television viewers watched something they’d never seen before. A bizarre masked figure invaded their screens twice in one night. The hijacker took over two major TV stations in what remains one of the most audacious and mysterious hacks in […]
When the Hacker Was an Algorithm
When the Hacker Was an Algorithm: Inside the First AI-Orchestrated Cyber Espionage Campaign In September 2025, Anthropic security engineers spotted something wrong in their system logs. Claude, their flagship AI assistant, was generating thousands of requests across multiple accounts. Reconnaissance scans. Exploit code. Credential validation tests. All moving with precision and tempo that felt off. […]
The Phantom Hacker
The Phantom Hacker: Dylan Wheeler Got Away With $100 Million in Cybercrime Four teenage hackers stole over $100 million from Microsoft, Epic Games, and the U.S. Army. Three went to prison. Two are dead. One walks free. The Missing Defendant September 2014. A Delaware courtroom filled with federal prosecutors as four members of “Xbox Underground” […]
ClawdBot/Moltbot
ClawdBot/Moltbot: When Viral AI Tools Become Security Nightmares ClawdBot exploded onto the tech scene in January 2026. Within three days, the open-source AI assistant rocketed to 60,000 GitHub stars. Tech influencers praised it. Developers rushed to buy Mac Minis just to run it. People called it “Jarvis for your phone.” Then security researchers started digging. […]
The Maxus Mystery
The Maxus Mystery: When a 19-Year-Old Russian Hacker Held 300,000 Credit Cards Hostage The Christmas Day Ultimatum December 25, 1999. Most Americans celebrated Christmas with family. An anonymous hacker had other plans. Operating under the name “Maxus,” the attacker launched a website called the “Maxus Credit Card Pipeline” and started publishing thousands of stolen credit […]
From Anonymous Leader to FBI Ally
From Anonymous Leader to FBI Ally: The Redemption of Hector “Sabu” Monsegur Few cybersecurity stories hit as hard as Hector Xavier Monsegur’s transformation. You know him better as “Sabu.” He co-founded LulzSec, one of the most notorious hacker groups of the 2010s. They attacked Sony, PBS, and security firms with brutal efficiency. Their “50 days […]
The Gray-Hat Hacker Who Controls Your Car Before Criminals Do
The Gray-Hat Hacker Who Controls Your Car Before Criminals Do Sam Curry was 22 when he broke into Tesla’s vehicle management system. He was stuck on a road trip with a broken windshield. While waiting for support, a blind XSS payload he submitted earlier fired. He gained access to their internal systems. From there, he […]
When the Hacker Hacked the Hackers
When the Hacker Hacked the Hackers: The HackerOne Session Cookie Incident On November 24, 2019, a bug bounty hunter made a discovery that turned hacker-powered security on its head. They accidentally gained access to HackerOne itself. The vulnerability disclosure platform had paid out over 62 million dollars to ethical hackers worldwide. They protected clients like […]
Iceman: The FBI Consultant Who Became a Cybercrime Kingpin
Iceman: The FBI Consultant Who Became a Cybercrime Kingpin Max Butler stood 6-foot-5 and started as one of the good guys. He worked with the FBI. He built security tools. He helped defend the internet. Then he hacked the Pentagon. Then nobody would hire him. Then he became the biggest credit card thief in U.S. […]