It began with a chilling phone call in October 2015. John Brennan, then the head of the CIA and one of the most powerful men on Earth, received a call on his private number. After initial hesitation, he answered only to be met with a barrage of expletives and a demand for an astronomical $5 trillion, an amount so vast it dwarfs the GDP of many nations. The caller's chilling parting message? "Stop bombing the Middle East." Unbeknownst to Brennan, on the other end was a 15-year-old, high on drugs, known as "Cracka," the leader of a hacker group called "Crackas With Attitude (CWA)." This was just the beginning of a digital assault that would terrorize US security systems.
Cracka, fueled by outrage over US involvement in the Middle East, particularly the suffering in Gaza, sought to make a statement. His first major target was the National Director of Intelligence, James Clapper, whose personal phone number and email he found with alarming ease and then publicly exposed. This caught the attention of another young hacker, known as "Default," a prodigy who had started his digital journey by cheating at video games and evolved into a master of cyber-reconnaissance. Default, driven by a desire to expose government surveillance after the Edward Snowden revelations, had already amassed a fortune in Bitcoin and even orchestrated a daring hack on a Canadian university, deleting millions in student debt, and influenced Danish law by bringing down government websites to protest animal cruelty. When Default saw Cracka's exploit, he reached out, and an unlikely alliance was formed.
Their next target was audacious: John Brennan himself. Cracka, using a simple but ingenious social engineering trick, impersonated a Verizon technician and tricked a customer service agent into giving him access to Brennan's private account, including his personal email. From there, he found Brennan's private phone number, initiating the spam calls that began this incredible story. Once inside Brennan's email, Cracka gained access to highly sensitive documents, including his 47-page top-secret security clearance form detailing criminal history, psychological records, and past drug abuse. At Default's urging, Cracka contacted WikiLeaks, and Julian Assange himself took interest, publishing the documents. The breach cost US agencies over $1.5 million and caused immense embarrassment, proving that even the head of the CIA was vulnerable, easily exploited by a pair of teenagers. But they didn't stop there. They went on to hack the FBI's Deputy Director, obtaining a database of 9,000 Department of Justice officials and 20,000 FBI agents' personal information, which they promptly leaked.
For a time, these young hackers felt invincible, believing no one could touch them. But as is often the case, the law eventually caught up. Default made a fateful mistake, bragging about the CIA hack on an online gaming platform to a friend. That friend, it is believed, tipped off the FBI. One day, agents burst into Default's room, assault rifles aimed, seizing his encrypted hard drive, which contained over a billion dollars' worth of Bitcoin. Across the Atlantic, British police simultaneously raided Cracka's home, seizing his computers. Both faced severe consequences: Cracka, being a minor in the UK, spent two years in a detention center, becoming the first minor jailed for hacking there. Default, despite being less involved, paid an even heavier price, serving five years in federal prison, facing a hefty fine, and losing his vast Bitcoin fortune. While in court, he initially maintained his actions were for "political justice," but later acknowledged he was "completely wrong." Their story stands as a stark testament to the immense power of digital defiance, but also to the crushing weight of consequences that await those who choose to wage a cyber-war against the world's most formidable powers.
