Kevin Mitnick, a reformed hacker who was as soon as one of the needed pc criminals within the United States, died on Sunday, in accordance with a press release shared Wednesday by a cybersecurity coaching firm he co-founded and a funeral house in Las Vegas. He was 59.

His demise was confirmed by Kathy Wattman, a spokeswoman for KnowBe4.

The trigger was issues from pancreatic most cancers. He had been present process remedy on the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center following his prognosis greater than a yr in the past, in accordance with the King David Memorial Chapel & Cemetery in Las Vegas.

After serving jail time for breaking into and tampering with company pc networks, he was launched in 2000 and started a brand new profession as a safety guide, author and public speaker.

Mr. Mitnick was greatest recognized for the crime spree through the Nineteen Nineties that concerned the theft of 1000’s of information recordsdata and bank card numbers from computer systems throughout the nation. He used his abilities to work his method into the nation’s telephone and cell networks, vandalizing authorities, company and college pc programs.

Investigators at the time named him the “most wanted” pc hacker on this planet.

In 1995, after a greater than two-year-long manhunt, Mr. Mitnick was captured by the F.B.I. and charged with the unlawful use of a phone entry system and pc fraud. “He allegedly had access to corporate trade secrets worth millions of dollars. He was a very big threat,” Kent Walker, a former assistant U.S. legal professional in San Francisco, mentioned on the time.

In 1998, whereas Mr. Mitnick awaited sentencing, a gaggle of supporters commandeered The New York Times web site for a number of hours, forcing it to close down.

The subsequent yr, Mr. Mitnick pleaded guilty to pc and wire fraud as a part of an settlement with prosecutors and was sentenced to 46 months in jail. He was additionally prohibited from utilizing a pc or cellphone with out the permission of his probation officer for the three years following his launch.

Mr. Mitnick grew up in Los Angeles as an solely baby of divorced mother and father. He moved continuously and was one thing of a loner, finding out magic methods, in accordance with his 2011 memoir, “Ghost in the Wires.”

By the age of 12, Mr. Mitnick had discovered methods to freely trip the bus utilizing a $15 punch card and clean tickets fished from a dumpster, and in highschool he developed an obsession with the inside workings of the switches and circuits of phone firms.

By 17, he was burrowing into totally different company pc programs and ultimately had his first run-in with the authorities for these actions. It was the start of a decades-long cat-and-mouse sport with legislation enforcement.

In his memoir, Mr. Mitnick disputed most of the accusations leveled towards him, together with that he had hacked into authorities pc programs.

Mr. Mitnick additionally claimed that he ignored the bank card numbers he gleaned in his pursuit of code. “Anyone who loves to play chess knows that it’s enough to defeat your opponent. You don’t have to loot his kingdom or seize his assets to make it worthwhile,” he wrote in his guide.

Survivors embody Mr. Mitnick’s spouse, Kimberley Mitnick, who’s pregnant with their first baby, in accordance with the obituary.

An entire obituary might be forthcoming.