Who Is Kevin Mitnick?

Kevin David Mitnick, 59, died peacefully on Sunday, July 16, 2023, after valiantly battling pancreatic cancer for more than a year. Kevin is survived by his beloved wife, Kimberley Mitnick, who remained by his side throughout their 14-month ordeal. Kimberley is pregnant with their first child. Kevin was ecstatic about this new chapter in his and Kimberley's life together, which has now been sadly cut short.

• KnowBe4 Blog Post About Kevin
• Kevin's Obiturary
• Article In Associated Press

Kevin Mitnick (born August 6, 1963) is an American computer security consultant, author, and hacker. In the mid nineties, he was “The World’s Most Wanted Hacker”. Since 2000, he has been a successful security consultant, public speaker and author.

Kevin does security consulting for Fortune 500 companies, performs penetration testing services for the world’s largest companies and teaches Social Engineering classes to dozens of companies and government agencies. His last book ‘Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker’ was a New York Times bestseller.

In 2000, Miramax made a movie made about Kevin’s life, which was based on the book Takedown by John Markoff and Tsutomu Shimomura. The DVD was released in September 2004. An independent documentary was made that corrected many errors in the Miramax movie.

Kevin Mitnick wrote three computer security books with William L. Simon:

• The Art of Intrusion: The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders & Deceivers
• The Art of Deception
• The Art of Invisibility

In 2012 a book came out called The Path of Least Resistance, that Kevin wrote with Brad Sagarin. Here is a PDF with Chapter Three about Social Engineering.

Kevin is "The World's Most Famous Hacker" and has been the subject of countless news and magazine articles published throughout the world. He has made guest appearances on numerous television and radio programs, offering expert commentary on issues related to information security. In addition to appearing on local network news programs, he has made appearances on 60 Minutes, The Learning Channel, Tech TV’s Screen Savers, Court TV, Good Morning America, CNN’s Burden of Proof, Street Sweep, and Talkback Live, National Public Radio, and as a guest star on ABC’s spy drama “Alias”.

Mitnick has served as a keynote speaker at numerous industry events, hosted a weekly talk radio show on KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles, testified before the United States Senate, written for Harvard Business Review and spoken for Harvard Law School. Click on the link to see him on The Colbert Report where he talks about his latest book.

Kevin Mitnick (KnowBe4’s Chief Hacking Officer) and KnowBe4’s CEO Stu Sjouwerman worked for 8 months to distill Kevin’s 30+ years first-hand hacking experience into online training modules for employees in an office environment.

This is the highly successful Kevin Mitnick Security Awareness Training which ensures that employees are properly trained to deal with frequent hacking attacks and can spot social engineering red flags.

Based on Kevin Mitnick’s 30+ year unique first-hand hacking experience, you now can train employees to better manage the urgent IT security problems of social engineering, spear phishing and ransomware attacks.

Based on Kevin's experience, KnowBe4 enables your employees to make smarter security decisions, every day.