Insecure about your Password?

[Joe Guy]

[Gob]

Once the FBI's most-wanted cybercriminal, Jeremy Hammond is serving one of the longest sentences a US hacker has received — 10 years, the maximum allowed under his plea agreement.



But to this day, he's unsure how agents cracked his Mac's encryption. Perhaps it was the fact his password was his cat's name and the numbers 123.

Cocaine dealers, bank robbers and carjackers converge at Manchester Federal Prison in rural Kentucky in the US — and then there is Jeremy Hammond, a tousle-haired and talented hacker whose nimble fingers have clicked and tapped their way into the world's computing systems. Among those whose data he helped expose: the husband of the federal judge who sentenced him.

"From the start, I always wanted to target government websites, but also police and corporations that profit off government contracts," he says. "I hacked lots of dot-govs."

Once the FBI's most-wanted cybercriminal, Hammond is serving one of the longest sentences a US hacker has received — 10 years, the maximum allowed under his plea agreement last year.

Asked about the larger danger posed by cybercriminals, he laughed at the idea that some consider such attacks as threatening to national security as terrorism.

"I mean, I didn't kill anybody," he said.

At the same time, he knows the risk of nation states or others using a computer to do harm is real.

"If I was capable of doing these things on my own or with my team, what about a well-financed team that trained for years?"

To this day, Hammond is unsure how agents cracked his encryption program and got what they needed to land him back in prison. But he has one idea: "My password was really weak."

It was his cat.

"Chewy," he said, looking down at his hands. "Chewy 123."

[BoSoxGal]

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