Top 100 Mitnick Quotes

#1. The myth of Kevin Mitnick is much more interesting than the reality of Kevin Mitnick. If they told the reality, no one would care.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #370210
#2. Sometimes I get a call from my bank, and the first thing they ask is, 'Mr. Mitnick, may I get your account number?' And I'll say, 'You called me! I'm not giving you my account number!'

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1543494
#3. The hacking trend has definitely turned criminal because of e-commerce.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #7429
#4. Right away, I invited on guests like Steve Wozniak, John Draper, and even porn star Danni Ashe, who took her top off in the studio to show us all how hot she was. (Listen up, Howard Stern, I'm following in your footsteps!)

Kevin D. Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #16769
#5. Hacking was the only entertainment that would occupy my mind - like a huge video game, but with real consequences. I could have evaded the FBI a lot longer if I had been able to control my passion for hacking.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #21524
#6. I happen to be notorious. That, I have no control over.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #52030
#7. 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.

Kevin D. Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #58550
#8. Penetrating a company's security often starts with the bad guy obtaining some piece of information that seems so innocent, so everyday and unimportant, that most people in the organization don't see any reason why the item should be protected and restricted.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #81498
#9. My argument is not that I shouldn't have been punished, but that the punishment didn't fit the crime.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #101314
#10. I think it goes back to my high school days. In computer class, the first assignment was to write a program to print the first 100 Fibonacci numbers. Instead, I wrote a program that would steal passwords of students. My teacher gave me an A.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #103403
#11. I was addicted to hacking, more for the intellectual challenge, the curiosity, the seduction of adventure; not for stealing, or causing damage or writing computer viruses.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #131164
#12. Should we fear hackers? Intention is at the heart of this discussion.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #133440
#13. Every time some [developer] says, 'Nobody will go to the trouble of doing that,' there's some kid in Finland who will go to the trouble.

Kevin D. Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #146782
#14. My hacking involved pretty much exploring computer systems and obtaining access to the source code of telecommunication systems and computer operating systems, because my goal was to learn all I can about security vulnerabilities within these systems.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #153619
#15. A hacker doesn't deliberately destroy data or profit from his activities.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #167677
#16. There isn't any loving, romantic way to put this: I told Bonnie we needed to get married so she couldn't testify against me, and also so she could visit me if I landed in jail, which was looking like the way things were headed.

Kevin D. Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #171628
#17. It's actually a smarter crime because imagine if you rob a bank, or you're dealing drugs. If you get caught you're going to spend a lot of time in custody. But with hacking, it's much easier to commit the crime and the risk of punishment is slim to none.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #187366
#18. I think a cyber-terrorism attack is overblown, though the threat exists. I think al Qaeda and other groups are more interested in symbolic terrorism, like what they did to the World Trade Center - suicide bombers or something that really has an effect and is meaningful to people.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #191615
#19. Being on the run wasn't fun, but it was something I had to do. I was actually working in legitimate jobs. I wasn't living on people's credit cards. I was living like a character out of a movie. It was performance art.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #191678
#20. The Patriot Act is ludicrous. Terrorists have proved that they are interested in total genocide, not subtle little hacks of the U.S. infrastructure, yet the government wants a blank search warrant to spy and snoop on everyone's communications.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #212665
#21. Hacking is exploiting security controls either in a technical, physical or a human-based element.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #224916
#22. You can't go to Windows Update and get a patch for stupidity.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #225989
#23. I use Spam Arrest because of the amount of junk mail I get. Any legitimate person who wants to send me a message has to jump through hoops before they can be added to my opt-in list.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #236011
#24. Nine out of every 10 large corporations and government agencies have been attacked by computer intruders.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #236108
#25. The first programming assignment I had in high school was to find the first 100 Fibonacci numbers. Instead, I thought it would be cooler to write a program to get the teacher's password and all the other students' passwords. And the teacher gave me an A and told the class how smart I was.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #252452
#26. I get hired to hack into computers now and sometimes it's actually easier than it was years ago.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #259098
#27. The Internet is like the phone. To be without it is ridiculous.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #290246
#28. Garbage can provide important details for hackers: names, telephone numbers, a company's internal jargon.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #296699
#29. I believe in having each device secured and monitoring each device, rather than just monitoring holistically on the network, and then responding in short enough time for damage control.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #298788
#30. knowing you're smarter than somebody and you can beat them. And that, in our case, it was gonna make us some money.

Kevin D. Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #309237
#31. I can go into LinkedIn and search for network engineers and come up with a list of great spear-phishing targets because they usually have administrator rights over the network. Then I go onto Twitter or Facebook and trick them into doing something, and I have privileged access.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #324276
#32. Phone phreaking is a type of hacking that allows you to explore the telephone network by exploiting the phone systems and phone company employees.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #383994
#33. For a long time, I was portrayed as the Osama bin Laden of the Internet, and I really wanted to be able to tell my side of the story. I wanted to be able to explain exactly what I did and what I didn't do to people who thought they knew me.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #386666
#34. I trust online banking. You know why? Because if somebody hacks into my account and defrauds my credit card company, or my online bank account, guess who takes the loss? The bank, not me.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #395932
#35. Back in my day, I would probe by hand. Now you can get commercial software that does the job for you.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #397476
#36. New security loopholes are constantly popping up because of wireless networking. The cat-and-mouse game between hackers and system administrators is still in full swing.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #407939
#37. I saw myself as an electronic joy rider.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #411423
#38. Hackers are breaking the systems for profit. Before, it was about intellectual curiosity and pursuit of knowledge and thrill, and now hacking is big business.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #411550
#39. Social engineering is using deception, manipulation and influence to convince a human who has access to a computer system to do something, like click on an attachment in an e-mail.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #445154
#40. For the average home-user, anti-virus software is a must.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #448694
#41. I was fascinated with the phone system and how it worked; I became a hacker to get better control over the phone company.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #474156
#42. Some people think technology has the answers.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #493913
#43. Most of the computer compromises that we hear about use a technique called spear phishing, which allows an attacker access to a key person's workstation. It's extremely difficult to defend against.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #526038
#44. You can never protect yourself 100%. What you do is protect yourself as much as possible and mitigate risk to an acceptable degree. You can never remove all risk.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #531911
#45. No way, no how did I break into NORAD. That's a complete myth. And I never attempted to access anything considered to be classified government systems.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #552919
#46. I'm an expert witness in a case that's in appeal about a guy who allegedly misappropriated source code from a major, major company - he actually worked there and then apparently they found it on his laptop later.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #584028
#47. I keep my stuff updated all the time. Being in the security industry, I keep up to date with securities.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #587725
#48. Both social engineering and technical attacks played a big part in what I was able to do. It was a hybrid. I used social engineering when it was appropriate, and exploited technical vulnerabilities when it was appropriate.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #597156
#49. 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.

Kevin D. Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #612272
#50. One noted software libertarian, Richard Stallman, even refused to protect his account with a password.

Kevin D. Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #636973
#51. All they need to do is to set up some website somewhere selling some bogus product at twenty percent of the normal market prices and people are going to be tricked into providing their credit card numbers.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #649170
#52. The key to social engineering is influencing a person to do something that allows the hacker to gain access to information or your network.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #656188
#53. When an attacker fails with one person, they often go to another person. The key is to report the attack to other departments. Workers should know to act like they are going along with what the hacker wants and take copious notes so the company will know what the hacker is trying to find.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #659136
#54. Anyone who thinks that security products alone offer true security is settling for the illusion of security.

Kevin D. Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #693076
#55. Protecting yourself is very challenging in the hostile environment of the Internet. Imagine a global environment where an unscrupulous person from the other side of the planet can probe your computer for weaknesses and exploit them to gain access to your most sensitive secrets.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #693093
#56. My primary goal of hacking was the intellectual curiosity, the seduction of adventure.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #695778
#57. Computer hacking really results in financial losses and hassles. The objectives of terrorist groups are more serious. That is not to say that cyber groups can't access a telephone switch in Manhattan on a day like 9/11, shut it down, and therefore cause more casualties.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #701216
#58. Every hacker is to some extent a rebel who lives by different standards and enjoys beating the system.

Kevin D. Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #712396
#59. I was hooked in before hacking was even illegal.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #723276
#60. When I was being moved, a deputy U.S. Marshal with a Southern accent so thick it sounded like he was doing a bad parody of a Good Ol' Boy sheriff laughed and said, "You're the only prisoner we ever had that got booted out of jail!

Kevin D. Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #726809
#61. The perfect PIN is not four digits and not associated with your life, like an old telephone number. It's something easy for you to remember and hard for other people to guess.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #744557
#62. I was an accomplished computer trespasser. I don't consider myself a thief. I copied without permission.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #761141
#63. When somebody asks for a favor involving information, if you don't know him or can't verify his identity, just say no.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #776946
#64. But have you ever felt that something was so good it couldn't possibly last?

Kevin D. Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #784157
#65. Use a personal firewall. Configure it to prevent other computers, networks and sites from connecting to you, and specify which programs are allowed to connect to the net automatically.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #785964
#66. To have transactions made on your web site via credit card, you must be PCI compliant. Businesses make the mistake of thinking that because you passed the requirements and are PCI certified, you are immune to attacks.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #810575
#67. So the ethic I was taught in school resulted in the path I chose in my life following school.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #838156
#68. We have problems with our physical security, operational security through to management.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #875064
#69. The explosion of companies deploying wireless networks insecurely is creating vulnerabilities, as they think it's limited to the office - then they have Johnny Hacker in the parking lot with an 802.11 antenna using the network to send threatening emails to the president!

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #889476
#70. If I needed to know about a security exploit, I preferred to get the information by accessing the companies' security teams' files, rather than poring over lines of code to find it on my own. It's just more efficient.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #910298
#71. I obtained confidential information in the same way government employees did, and I did it all without even touching a computer ... I was so successful with this line of attack that I rarely had to go towards a technical attack.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #925498
#72. What I found personally to be true was that it's easier to manipulate people rather than technology.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #930146
#73. I'm still a hacker. I get paid for it now. I never received any monetary gain from the hacking I did before. The main difference in what I do now compared to what I did then is that I now do it with authorization.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #935847
#74. Any type of operating system that I wanted to be able to hack, I basically compromised the source code, copied it over to the university because I didn't have enough space on my 200 megabyte hard drive.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #949883
#75. When I was in prison, a Colombian drug lord, offered me $5 million in cash to manipulate a computer system so that he would be released. I turned him down.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #967208
#76. Social engineering is using manipulation, influence and deception to get a person, a trusted insider within an organization, to comply with a request, and the request is usually to release information or to perform some sort of action item that benefits that attacker.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #973408
#77. Oracle, for example, has even hired people to dumpster dive for information about its competitor, Microsoft. It's not even illegal, because trash isn't covered by data secrecy laws.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #986323
#78. It's true, I had hacked into a lot of companies, and took copies of the source code to analyze it for security bugs. If I could locate security bugs, I could become better at hacking into their systems. It was all towards becoming a better hacker.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #990535
#79. I get hired by companies to hack into their systems and break into their physical facilities to find security holes. Our success rate is 100%; we've always found a hole.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #998832
#80. The government does things like insisting that all encryption programs should have a back door. But surely no one is stupid enough to think the terrorists are going to use encryption systems with a back door. The terrorists will simply hire a programmer to come up with a secure encryption scheme.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1006775
#81. It was used for decades to describe talented computer enthusiasts, people whose skill at using computers to solve technical problems and puzzles was - and is - respected and admired by others possessing similar technical skills.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1018321
#82. So what I was essentially doing was, I compromised the confidentiality of their proprietary software to advance my agenda of becoming the best at breaking through the lock.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1021802
#83. I don't know the capabilities of our enemies. But I found it quite easy to circumvent security at certain phone companies throughout the United States. So if an inquisitive kid can do it, why can't a cyberterrorist do it?

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1037400
#84. Choosing a hard-to-guess, but easy-to-remember password is important!

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1043582
#85. Usually companies hire me, and they know full well who I am, and that's one of the reasons they want to hire me.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1085402
#86. My actions constituted pure hacking that resulted in relatively trivial expenses for the companies involved, despite the government's false claims.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1095935
#87. As a young boy, I was taught in high school that hacking was cool.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1111359
#88. At the end of the day, my goal was to be the best hacker.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1121664
#89. A log-in simulator is a program to trick some unknowing user into providing their user name and password.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1125866
#90. The maximum sentence was twenty years for each free phone call. Twenty years for each call! I was facing a worst-case scenario of 460 years.

Kevin D. Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1129366
#91. Are hackers a threat? The degree of threat presented by any conduct, whether legal or illegal, depends on the actions and intent of the individual and the harm they cause.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1185642
#92. Our Constitution requires that the accused be presumed innocent before trial, thus granting all citizens the right to a bail hearing, where the accused has the opportunity to be represented by counsel, present evidence, and cross-examine witnesses.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1195045
#93. There is no patch for stupidity.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1231703
#94. Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs founded Apple Inc, which set the computing world on its ear with the Macintosh in 1984.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1244785
#95. My hacking was all about becoming the best at circumventing security. So when I was a fugitive, I worked systems administrator jobs to make money. I wasn't stealing money or using other people's credit cards. I was doing a 9-to-5 job.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1247742
#96. Companies spend millions of dollars on firewalls, encryption, and secure access devices and it's money wasted because none of these measures address the weakest link in the security chain: the people who use, administer, operate and account for computer systems that contain protected information.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1250904
#97. No company that I ever hacked into reported any damages, which they were required to do for significant losses.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1266843
#98. Businesses should absolutely set aside funding in their budgets for security consultants. Unless there is an expert on staff, and there usually is not, it needs to be outsourced.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1291239
#99. A lot of companies are clueless, because they spend most or all of their security budget on high-tech security like fire walls and biometric authentication - which are important and needed - but then they don't train their people.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1307263
#100. There's a feature on Facebook where you can enable security that checks the device you're coming from. By default these features are likely off, but as a consumer, you can enable them.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick Quotes #1312494

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