He committed the first major cyber theft in history: Who is Vladimir Levin?
We can call Vladimir Levin a black hat hacker without thinking. Because his actions were only for his own benefit, not to satisfy his curiosity or to benefit society.
Famous Russian hacker Vladimir Levin, born in 1967, became famous for his hacking crime by breaking through the security net of one of the world's most famous banks.
Vladimir Levin, a graduate of St. Petersburg Technologichesky University in mathematics, led a group of Russian hackers in the first international public bank robbery over a network.
Vladimir Leonidovitch Levin is a Russian individual famed for his involvement in hacking attempt to fraudulently transfer USD 10.7 million via Citibank's computers.
Levin used a laptop in London to access the Citibank network and then received a list of customer codes and passwords. He then signed in eighteen times over the course of a week, transferring some ten million dollars via wire transfer to accounts controlled by the hacker group.
This cyber heist, organized by Russian hacker Vladimir Levin on Citibank in 1994, went down in history as the world's first large-scale attack.
Citibank's security system identified two transfers in August 1994, one for $26,800 and the other for $304,000, according to published bank reports. Identifying this as a suspicious transaction, bank officials then contact the FBI, which tracks Levin for breaking into Citibank's system and making further illegal transfers.
After determining where the transactions originated, telecommunications workers in Russia were told by US officials that St. Petersburg and, finally, Levin, to monitor illegal fund transfers. Levin was apprehended at London Heathrow Airport in March 1995. After pleading guilty in January 1998, he admitted to using stolen passwords and codes from Citibank customers to make transfers to his accounts. Of the ten million dollars stolen from Citibank accounts, all but $400,000 were recovered.