The Fifteen Greatest Hacking Exploits

Features
By published

The Theft Of Windows Source Code

February 12, 2004 was a beautiful day, but Microsoft was in a state of emergency. The source code for Windows 2000, which is still used by a great number of people even today, had just been stolen. Worse still, that code had been disseminated into the wild by a still unidentified hacker.

Windows Source Code in the Wild

This breach represented a heavy loss: 600 million bytes of data, 30,195 files, and 13.5 million lines of code. The leak involved both Windows 2000 and its older sibling, Windows NT4. Everybody at the software giant tried to get a grip on what had just happened, but nobody really had answers.

The data was stolen directly from Microsoft's network. The hacker in question, who has never been discovered, entered the company's internal network by breaking the password on one of the machines. The source code quickly found its way to the Internet, especially P2P networks. Fortunately, even through everyone feared the worst, the consequences of the theft were quite mild.

More about cyber security

Crosswalks in Silicon Valley hacked to play satirical messages from Musk and Zuckerberg sound-a-likes

Akira ransomware can be cracked with 16 RTX 4090 GPUs in around ten hours — new counterattack breaks encryption

Intel driver update for Lunar Lake chips reportedly improves iGPU FPS by 10%, 1% lows by 25%
See more latest
10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • They should have very serious consequences for hackers. I'm tired of defaced websites, viruses, trojans, etc. Although it is fun to screw around with other people's computers..especially if they've done it to you...but either way there should be some huge penalties for hacking. I say chop off a thumb on the first offence. 2nd offence: chope off the rest of the fingers on that hand. Hackers along with script kiddies would cease to exist.
    Reply
  • itadakimasu
    sounds like you have been the victim of malware and virii while doing some questionable internet browsing...
    Reply
  • Well, 'Anonymous', I hope you're using Tor to browse the 'intarweb', you worthless plebian.
    Here in the USA, we aren't barbarians, and the only people who would even deserve such harsh treatment would be rapists and their ilk. Even so, we just lock em up and release them on probation a few months/years later. :P
    Not perfect, but I say cutting off fingers because you're too stupid to take basic steps to protect your system? Kinda harsh.
    The difference between a robber and a hacker, is that you can completely stop a hacker by unplugging your phone line from your modem.
    Do that, for the sake of humanity. :P
    Reply
  • arkadi
    Well it is important info, but i don't think you can call them the best :) they got basted after all. Governments got best hackers if you ask me.
    Reply
  • Reynod
    There are numerous other well documented hacks that probably deserved a mention.

    At least you did take the moral high ground.

    You neglected to mention Electron and Phoenix ... clearly they were better than most of these mentioned here.



    Reply
  • deadliest
    hmmm so this hacker list is not complete oh oh oh , you should have guys, it was most interesting reading about this. But i think hackers are a necessary evil without them how would i play my pirated games :D
    Reply
  • @ Arkadi
    "Well it is important info, but i don't think you can call them the best :) they got basted after all. Governments got best hackers if you ask me. "

    Lol, where do you think the Government found there hackers? They hired guys like this ^^Rofl
    Reply
  • Script kiddies. Blegh.
    Reply
  • ahhhhhh
    its good to be a hacker
    Reply
  • jordanprogrammer
    the best website for programming language:
    www.jordanprogrammer.tk
    Reply