How This 16-Year-Old Hacked the CIA

they were the worst sort of Vandal acting without care of cost or harm to those they affected is he a hacking Mastermind police officials tell CNM they're trying to determine if the teenager is connected to any potential hacking group Mustafa Al basam covered reconnaissance assessing company's vulnerability we launched a Denow of services attack against the CIA to know that 15 16 old doing mind let me throw a scenario at you you're a teenager with a unique set of skills far beond what most people your age have you're given a choice continue being a typical teenager

who plays video games and hangs out with friends or use your skills to make history as the teen who outsmarted the entire US Government this may sound like the beginning to a plot of some fictional superhero origin story but in the case of Mustafa albassam this was a very real Choice he faced and his decision spiraled into one of the most shocking government cyber attacks of all time here is how a 16-year-old hacked the CIA and before we start I want to wish you guys a beautiful day ahead The Golden Child of hacking While most

kids his age were playing soccer Mustafa alasam was busy laying the groundw to become one of the most notorious hackers of all time but who is this hacking Prodigy Mustafa was born in 1995 in Baghdad Iraq when he was 6 years old he and his family immigrated to the UK and settled down in southeast London Mustafa describes himself as being naturally drawn to computers very early on it started when he was 8 years old and his father came home one day with a computer Mustafa began by spending hours playing computer games but his interest in

computer games took a very unusual turn especially for an 8-year-old Mustafa began to wonder how do computers actually work so at 8 years old he started exploring computer programming and learned a lot about algorithms digital coding and data analysis he even started building his own websites using Microsoft font page which is a program that allows users to write their own computer codes and post them on the worldwide web how an 8-year-old was capable of doing all this is beyond me mustafa's interests then shifted from creating websites to manipulating other people's websites he'd go in reprogram

them and rewrite their codes this is what most people know as the art of computer hacking and Mustafa was about to become one of the greatest hacking artists of all time Mustafa carried out his first online hack when he was only 9 years old and it all started when he was sitting in his bedroom doing his math homework he realized he didn't have a calculator so he searched the web and found an online calculator website but discovered that he could rewrite the entire website's computer code with his Newfound knowledge he couldn't resist the urge to

tamper with it and in that moment Mustafa just performed his first cyber hack this calculator had a security hole in it where you could basically type computer codes into this calculator and you can hack the entire website from there The Golden Child of hacking was born every day Mustafa was glued to his computer hacking into all kinds of websites his boldest move hacking into his own school's web server inside he found details like teacher salaries and grades of the other students then his school found out how did the school react to that they didn't really

take it very well at all cuz they kind of thought I was trying to Blackmail them he wasn't actually trying to Blackmail his teachers and classmates he just wanted to practice hacking the same way athletes practice sports and because of that reason the school let him off the hook but his hacking skills didn't end there because Mr Mustafa needed more of a real challenge so he Dove straight into the internet to find hacker groups and communities that he could learn from but what he found was unexpected despite all these communities of hackers Mustafa realized that

he was actually better at hacking than the majority of the people online even the ones that were older than him then at the age of 13 Mustafa stumbled upon an article about an online hacking group called anonymous anonymous is one of the biggest online vigilante groups members hack into companies and governments you've seen them wearing mask and protest they prefer a life in the shadows the article was about anonymous's most notorious Cyber attack called operation payback operation payback was an online operation to support file sharing on the internet but that's a tip of the iceberg

here's a closer look at what operation payback really was Operation payback started as a retaliation against companies that wanted to take down a website called Wikileaks Wikileaks his mission was to unveil the Hidden Truths that governments and corporations were fighting one of their biggest moves was publicly exposing documents and videos directly from the US Department of Defense because of this the US government considered them a major threat to National Security and declared Wikileaks Enemy Number One other big companies took notice and joined in the government's fight against Wikileaks in 2010 MasterCard fought against Wikileaks by

blocking donations to their website this is where operation payback came into play both Anonymous and Wikileaks believed in free access to information so Anonymous took a stand to support Wikileaks by launching their own attack against MasterCard this morning it attacked mastercard.com crashing the website in retaliation for MasterCard worldwide stated intent to deny transactions with Wikileaks operation payback was a success he plunged deep into this group of online Vigilantes and for the first time ever at the age of 13 he would go on to help perform one of their most extreme cyber attacks yet taking down

the Tunisian government Mustafa was amazed by the real world power of anonymous's online hacking and at that moment he found his community in December of 2010 the Tunisian people began a revolution against their government the Revolution was in response to government corruption at the time Tunisia was run by President Ben Ali but Ben Ali wasn't a president he was a dictator Ben Ali misused government funds rigged elections and censored Free Speech the Tunisian people grew more and more frustrated with his oppressed government so they decided to publicly protest the Tunisian Revolution matched what Anonymous believed

in bringing down an oppressive government battling censorship and most importantly stirring up chaos so Anonymous decided to join the revolution the Tunisian government has decided it wants to control this present with falsehoods and misinformation and restrict the freedoms of their own people all of this in order to impose upon them their own self-serving vision of the future the online vigilante group's mission was to help the tun Ian people stand up to their own government from cyber attacking government websites to even providing the Tunisian people hacking software anonymous had no limits they made sure that the

government's censorship was exposed for all the public to see and as a result the Tunisian president Ben Ali fled to Syria operation Tunisia was a success this operation was mustafa's first taste of the real world impact of cyber hacking that was definitely one of the more interesting operations because we actually had people within inside tesia actually approaching anous for heal and at 13 Mustafa became Intoxicated by the power the origin of LC our world has evolved so much digitally I mean we get new iPhones every year so why don't we upgrade our everyday essentials too

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Friday sale because in our digital age even your Essentials deserve an upgrade enter LC LC which stands for laughing at your security is a subgroup of anonymous LC claimed they wanted to distance themselves from Anonymous saying that they felt like Anonymous was straying away from its original [Music] values reality though it seemed like they were just hacking for entertainment we do things just because we find it entertaining it's more less point of it there were six founding members of LC their most talented member was none other than 16-year-old Mustafa alasan the group often recalled the

time when an opposing hacker attempted to hack the LC website but the hacker was met with the wrath of this teenager you wrote a better version of his code in in about less than 5% of the space used and just sent it back to him and go use this instead this was only the first taste of mustafa's hacking skills but what started out as hacking for the sake of entertainment took a shocking turn that ended in taking down the CIA the hack that shut down the CIA this all began with what LC called operation anti-security

AKA # antisec operation anti-c was a hacking spree that involved cyber attacks against governments and organizations to expose classified information and each attack grew more and more extreme the operation's first Target was the FBI LC started an attack against one of the FBI's security contractors HB Gary HB Gary is a company that creates security software that helps expose computer threats in 2010 the FBI hired HB gar to defend against online hackers h HB Gary and the FBI received the word of LC and the threat they posed to cyber security so an executive of hbgary decided

to publicly wage war against L an executive at this computer security firm HB Gary provokes them goes to a computer security conference and says I'm going to reveal the primary members of this group that executive who threatened to expose members of LC was HB gar CEO Aaron bar from there LC was determined to take down HB Gary and Aaron bar they began a Cyber attack on hbg's servers trying to poke holes in its security Mustafa discovered that HB Garry's biggest security threat was its own CEO Aaron bar the CEO was using the same password for

his email company account his Paypal account his wer forecraft account and pretty much every single account Aaron played himself right into mustafa's hands it didn't take too long for Mustafa as he logged into Aaron Bar's company email and leaked over 70,000 confidential email exchanges this online hack resulted in shocking real world consequences for Aaron bar he ended up losing his job there were death threats to him and his family they had to move house so the the impact for him was very serious but this was just the beginning of the serious real world consequences of

operation anti-k Mustafa and LC were ready to take on their next Target another FBI affiliate known as infragard infragard is an alliance of volunteers from the government and private sectors who want to make sure that country's infrastructure is secure infragard is a nonprofit organization that helps the FBI securely share online information with other governments and businesses and they were also one of the biggest victims of LC in operation anti-c in 2011 the war on infr guard began in response to President Barack Obama declaring war on Cyber criminals good 24th century Obama has recently up the

stes with regard the is not LC was marked as one of these cyber criminals and the US government was determined to take them down in recent breaches more than 100 million Americans had their personal data compromis this is a direct threat to the economic security of American families not just the economy overall and to the well-being of our children WC didn't take this lightly and just as they've done before they once again took action they did pranks like calling the FBI pretending to be President Obama oh yes hello who am I speaking with this is

the FBI uh we have a very serious issue here a self-replicating flame bot but this was just the beginning of their attacks LC hacked into infr guard's website and vandalized it they wrote a message all over it saying let it flow you stupid stupid FBI battleships it wasn't long until LC managed to get their hands on the login details of infragard users they used this classified information against one particular user kareim hijazi hijazi was known as a white hat hacker which means that companies allowed him to hack their sites to test their security hijazi used

his hacking skills to legally collect data for both infragard and the FBI making him a gold mine of classified FBI information with so much sensitive information at stake LC saw an opportunity they threatened hijazi saying they'd leak all his data unless he paid up so not only did they have this gold mine of FBI information but they also had Kareem hijazi pushed into a corner but hijazi didn't give into their ultimatum instead hijazi exposed them he released a public statement saying in spite of these threats I refused to pay off LC or Supply them with

access to the sensitive botn net information had we agreed to provide this data to them LC would have been able to grow the size and scope of their dos attack and fraud capabilities however this exposure wasn't enough to drive Mustafa or the LC group away instead it added more fuel to their fire and pointed them toward their biggest hacking Target of all time the CIA they began by launching a Dos attack on the CIA website dos stands for distributed denial of service it involves hacking into a website and flooding its server with online traffic until

the website shuts down basically what it does is it floods a website with so many requests so many bogus visitor visitors that from so many different directions that the site simply crumbles under the traffic thank about ad dasas attack this way let's say you're in math class your math teacher is showing you how to do a math equation you're able to keep up with what they're saying at first your teacher begins speaking faster and throwing more and more information at you soon enough you're no longer able to process what your teacher is saying so you

give up and your brain shuts down this is what happened to the CIA website Mustafa and LC flooded the CIA website servers until they shut it offline but the website didn't just go offline all of the cia's internal databases also shut down at 16 years old Mustafa infiltrated the most secure government organization and news spread like wildfire this was a massive embarrassment for the US Government after 4 hours of hacking chaos LC posted a tweet saying good night Twitter the CIA anti lizards will probably rise from the packet sea while we rest our shining yet

saturated power field arrays to Mustafa and LC this was their ultimate hacking accomplishment but little did Mustafa or the other other LC members know there was a rat among them and the hack into the CIA was already compromised from the beginning the double agent imagine going through multiple operations with your close friends only to find out that one of them was a double agent well the CIA hack was compromised from the very beginning enter Hector monor AKA Sabu mon eventually adopted the name Sabu and joined a mysterious group of hackers about to take off that

mysterious group was LC and Sabu was one of its founding members but sabu's road to becoming a famous hacker was full of hardships and tragedy Sabu was originally born in Puerto Rico and entered the world with odds already stacked against him his 16-year-old father carried the responsibility of taking care of Sabu on his own after his mother left eventually Sabu and his family immigrated from Puerto Rico to New York City where he grew up in the projects and was raised by his father and his grandmother but by 2010 with his grandmother's passing Sabu found himself

stepping up to take care of his two young nieces money was tight and the weight of responsibilities were heavy for Sabu he needed to provide for his family but the way he did that wasn't simply by getting a job Sabu began hacking into large Banks and committing credit card fraud but what started out as hacking to provide for his family turned into an unexpected passion he dove into the world of activism which is a combination of computer hacking and activism for a political or social agenda and just just like Mustafa he found his calling with

one of the biggest online hacktivism groups of all time Anonymous he met other Anonymous members online who shared his passion for hacking one of those online members was 16-year-old Mustafa from there Sabu Mustafa and four other Anonymous members formed LC Sabu was one of the members that played a key role in the LC hacking operations specifically the infragard hacks but little did Sabu know he was being watched days after LC hacked into to the FBI affiliate inard the FBI came knocking on sabu's door they finally arrested Sabu and gave him an ultimatum so he said

well we know who you are we know what you're doing and we also know you have two kids in the house you make the decision tbu had a choice he could refuse to give up information about LC and risk going to jail or he could help the FBI and avoid jail time Sabu decided to do what was best for his family and became an FBI informan his main mission helped the FBI take down l to carry out this Mission Sabu continued working with LC and participated in their CIA hack which helped him seem less suspicious

while he was doing this he was also collecting LC secret data and chat logs Mustafa and the other LC members had no idea whether Sabu felt bad for turning on his fellow LC members is Up For Debate it wasn't a situation where I identified anybody I didn't point my fingers at nobody I you're rationalizing this no it's it's I'm giving you reality my operation and tailed logging and providing intelligence in reality sabu's decision led to a downward spiral for his fellow LC member Mustafa while playing on his computer in his childhood bedroom Mustafa heard a

bang on the door it was the UK police the police barged into mustafa's bedroom and raided the entire room I just kind of sat in my room for 3 hours as I watched them try to search my whole room for any kind of like USB sticks or laptops from there he was taken to the police station for interrogation the police informed that he was being charged with 880 crimes each charge equaling one hack he carried out with LC little did they know they weren't dealing with your average 16-year-old were you scared at this point I

don't think I was scared specifically I was more annoyed or pissed off the police interrogation lasted for hours but Mustafa gave up zero information about L SEC members or government hacks and they were hoping that I would basically reveal to them what I did or try to snitch on other people in the group I didn't I just like every question they would ask I would say no comment after being in custody for 24 hours the police were forced to let him go but Mustafa was far from being off the hook for the Cyber crimes he

committed What followed was a dramatic court case fit for TV in May of 2013 Mustafa came face to face with three fellow LC members for the first time ever in real life in court one of the most shocking twists was that one LC member had been lying about their identity the whole time a 16-year-old girl named Kayla was actually a 26-year-old military veteran named Ryan akroy but this was just one of the many courtroom twists Mustafa ended up pleading guilty to computer misuse so this should have been an easy case for the defense lawyers because

he pleaded guilty right well the defense was limited on what they could reveal in court this was because they couldn't reveal how the police Tracked Down Mustafa if they reveal how they caught me that that's like a matter of National Security cuz they're revealing the Spy techniques this limited the amount of evidence the police could provide as a result Mustafa was only charged with two counts of cyber hacking from there it was time for sentencing after sentencing the judge had harsh words for Mustafa and the other lwct members you cared nothing for the privacy of

others but did everything you could through your computer activities to hide your own identities while seeking publicity Mustafa Al basam the youngest of the hackers was given a 20-month suspended sentence for 2 years plus 300 hours of community work with a suspended sentence sentence Mustafa would have to serve 20 years in jail only if he committed another crime he ended up serving his 320 hours of community service working at a nonprofit clothing store that sold clothes for deaf and blind people his harshest punishment was a serious crime prevention order this meant that he had to

inform the police anytime he bought or threw away a computer he also couldn't delete his browser history but The Golden Child of hacking found a loophole never said I couldn't use private browsing so that was easy way around it after the court case Saga there was still one big question was this the end of LC whether LC is still around remains a mystery after the members arrests losc claimed they were disbanding in a statement released on its Twitter account it said our crew of six wishes you a happy 2011 so with those last thoughts it's

time to say bon voyage however there are thought to be offshoots of LC operating in China and Latin America Mustafa is no longer a member of law SEC but where is The Golden Child of hacking now from villain to Hero today mustafa's life looks pretty different from what you'd expect for a convicted felon after his arrest Mustafa earned a PhD in scaling cryptocurrencies and blockchain Technology from University College London and in 2021 he founded a company Celestial Labs that uses blockchain technology to provide web 3 Security even landed a spot on Forbes list of the

top 30 Tech entrepreneurs under under the age of 30 but there's one very ironic part to the story Mustafa now advises companies and governments on how to strengthen their cyber security yes the 16-year-old who hacked the CIA now helps protect against hackers the companies are being impacted by this ransomware today are the companies that haven't updated their software this is why it's very important to make sure that your software is up to date so that any vulnerabilities on your systems can be patched today Mustafa is considered a tech Mogul and has an estimated Network worth

between $5 to10 million despite his success some people are still critical of Mustafa they argue that Mustafa got off too easily for his cyber crimes against the FBI and CIA but it all boils down to this is Mustafa a criminal mastermind posing a major threat to National Security or is he a cyber Robin Hood taking from greedy governments and giving to the public before you answer consider this we're presented with a choice between good and evil every single day this Choice can be as small as driving on the highway and letting a car merge into

your lane versus speeding up and blocking them whichever option you choose you have your own reason behind it so was Mustafa alasam a villain or a hero I'll let you decide visual Venture wait before you go click this playlist right here to watch more dark internet documentaries because the algorithm will promote my channel more if you guys watch multiple videos please have an absolutely wonderful week peace