Mitnick Welcomed Back Online in Hacker Style

The king of computer hackers got a taste of his own meddling this weekend.

Kevin Mitnick, who served five years in federal prison for infiltrating the computer networks of Sun Microsystems Inc., Motorola Inc., Nokia and other large corporations, learned the same painful lesson as his former victims: No computer is ever safe.

To make matters worse, the Web site that sustained the attack was designed to advertise Mitnick’s new computer security business, Defensive Thinking Inc. He launched the Los Angeles-based firm last month, just before his probation period came to an end.

Mitnick’s site was defaced Sunday with the message “Welcome back to freedom.” In an attack 10 days earlier, a photo of a polar bear family was put on the site.

Mitnick, 39, shrugged off the intrusions as “friendly hacks.”

“It’s just king-of-the-hill mentality,” he said.

Neither attack caused any damage, and customers’ privacy was never in danger because their information is stored on another computer.

Mitnick’s site was set up by volunteers this year. Because Mitnick wasn’t allowed to operate computers until Jan. 21, he said, he hadn’t had time to secure the site.

“Since our core competency is computer security, we should have been more vigilant,” Mitnick said. “We’re more locked down now.”

Both sets of hackers exploited an obscure security flaw in the Microsoft Corp. server software that Mitnick employs to run his Web site.

“It was kind of amusing,” said Mitnick, who was barred from using computers, modems or cell phones during his three-year probation after his January 2000 release from prison.

“I half chuckled to myself. Whatever goes around, comes around.”

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Times staff writer David Colker contributed to this report.