Who is the #1 hacker?

Who is the number one hacker in the world is subjective and depends on whether you mean most famous ethical hacker, most dangerous black hat hacker, or most skilled, but several names are consistently cited. In the white hat ethical hacker community, Kevin Mitnick, who passed away in 2023, was often called number one hacker for his 1980s and 1990s exploits and later becoming a famous security consultant and author. Currently, many consider Linus Torvalds not a hacker in criminal sense but influential for Linux. For black hat, groups like Anonymous are collective number one. In terms of most wanted, the FBI most wanted cyber criminals include Russian hackers like Evgeniy Bogachev creator of GameOver Zeus botnet that stole $100M, and North Korean Lazarus Group hackers who stole $1.3B in crypto. For ethical hacking competitions, winners of Pwn2Own and DEF CON CTF like team PPP and Geohot, who hacked iPhone and PlayStation, are considered top. In popular culture, the number one hacker is often considered to be Kevin Mitnick for fame, or Jonathan James who hacked NASA at 16. For current active ethical hackers, bug bounty hunters like Santiago Lopez who earned $1M+ on HackerOne, and French researcher Orange Tsai are highly respected. There is no official number one hacker ranking, but in terms of impact, state-sponsored groups from Russia, China, North Korea and US NSA hackers are most capable. For learning purposes, famous white hats like Charlie Miller, who hacked cars, and Bruce Schneier are considered top for knowledge.