With definitions out of the way, you can be sure of the kinds of hackers we're talking about. Indeed, China is home to the world's highest number of hackers per capita.
China. China registered 12.9 million breaches in 2021, a significant improvement over the US (212.4 million), Iran (156.1 million), and India (86.6 million) in terms of digital security. The size of the Chinese cybersecurity market was $8.64 billion in 2021, up $1.3 billion or 17% from 2020.
Even though the United States is ranked number one overall, China continues to build on its cyber strengths. In several cyber power categories, it now leads the world. And in at least one instance, Russia also tops the United States.
41% of world's attack traffic is from China according to the estimate making it the hub of cyber assaults. Investigations have revealed an organized hacker network in China and it is said that many members of the hacker's group are associated with China's military.
Kevin Mitnick holds the title as the world's most famous hacker ever, with this title dating back to 1995 by the US Department of Justice. Kevin Mitnick started hacking at an early age. He broke into the realm of public attention in the 1980s after he hacked into the North American Defense Command (NORAD).
Ratings: 7.30/10 from 23 users. Kevin Mitnick was once the Earth's most wanted hacker. This highly stylized film juxtaposes his extraordinary hacking adventures with the infamous Koobface virus that attacked social networks in 2008.
One of the biggest hacks in history is the Equifax data breach that happened in 2017. Equifax, a credit reporting agency, had several security lapses that enabled attackers to access sensitive PII, date of birth, social security numbers, address, driver's license numbers, etc., of over 143 million customers.
Other countries that showed good cybersecurity included the United States, Denmark, Canada and France. Some countries scored well in a few categories and poorly in others, but the overall average brought their rankings up. These countries include Algeria, Sri Lanka, and Uzbekistan for the lowest telnet attack scores.
Finland. The safest country for cyber-security is Finland, according to the rankings.
In 2017, Foreign Policy provided an estimated range for China's "hacker army" personnel, anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 individuals.
Hackers learn to hack by getting an education in cybersecurity, obtaining certifications, and getting jobs that require hacking capabilities. Here is more information on how hackers learn to hack: Get an education in cybersecurity. There are many different paths to starting a career in hacking and cybersecurity.
Hackers will often use secure software such as a proxy server to hide their identity and funnel their communications through lots of different countries in order to evade detection. Other technologies like Tor and encryption enable them to add multiple layers to mask their identity.
Unsurprisingly, the state with the highest number of cyber-attacks (Nevada) also has the highest number of cyber attackers. Nevada has 150 hackers and cyber criminals for every 100,000 internet users. Only two other states have more than 100 cybercriminals per 100,000 internet users.
In addition, millions of illegal and underground computer programmers enter the cyber world daily, therefore, offering an exact number of how many hackers there are in the world is somewhat impossible. However, according to the 2018 Hacker Report, there are currently 166K+ registered hackers in the world.
This is the case of the Ivory Coast, the West African nation that in recent years has registered the greatest leap in quality in the field of hacking (that set of operations and techniques aimed at piercing computer hardware or software systems) and IT security.
Hacking around the world
I can proudly say that, overall, American hackers easily outperformed those from other countries. They were simply more innovative. They learned quickly -- and pushed the limits of what could be done.
Rafay Baloch , (born 5 February 1993) is a Pakistani ethical hacker and security researcher known for his discovery of vulnerabilities on the Android operating system.
"Like other public and private institutions, the World Bank has repeatedly experienced hacking attacks on its computer systems and is constantly updating its security to defeat these," he says.
The biggest motivation is often financial gain. Hackers can make money by stealing your passwords, accessing your bank or credit card details, holding your information to ransom, or selling your data to other hackers or on the dark web.
Kevin Mitnick is the world's most famous hacker, bestselling author, and the top cyber security speaker. Once one of the FBI's Most Wanted because he hacked into 40 major corporations just for the challenge, Mitnick is now a trusted security consultant to the Fortune 500 and governments worldwide.
Hacking initiative
After wanting to play his father's video games but having parental blocks preventing it, five-year-old Hassel tried hacking into the Xbox Live system by trying different combinations of passwords.