William Genovese is a former greyhat hacker turned security professional, who goes by the alias illwill.

History

In the early 2000s, Genovese was a former figure in a loose-knit group of computer hackers who called themselves illmob
illmob.org
that was a security community website ran by Genovese, which, at the time, had many high-profile incidents related to it. Genovese now works as a private security consultant involved in the computer security industry, doing penetration testing, phishing, OSINT threat intel, mitigation. He is also a contributor to the

Metasploit The Metasploit Project is a computer security project that provides information about security vulnerabilities and aids in penetration testing and IDS signature development. It is owned by Boston, Massachusetts-based security company Rapid7. It ...

project.

Website controversy

In 2003, Genovese's website was the first to release

0day A zero-day (also known as a 0-day) is a computer-software vulnerability previously unknown to those who should be interested in its mitigation, like the vendor of the target software. Until the vulnerability is mitigated, hackers can exploit it t ...

code that exploited th
MS03-026
Windows RPC vulnerability, which was later used by unknown hackers to create variants of the W32/Blaster Worm. In response, Genovese released a tool he coded to remove the worm from infected Windows PC's. In 2004Defendant: Microsoft source code sale was a setup , The Register
/ref> federal authorities charged Genovese with Theft of a Trade Secret (

US Code In the law of the United States, the Code of Laws of the United States of America (variously abbreviated to Code of Laws of the United States, United States Code, U.S. Code, U.S.C., or USC) is the official compilation and codification of the ...

Title 18, section 1832), for selling the incomplete WindowsNT/2000

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...

to Microsoft investigators and federal agents, even though the code sold was already widely distributed on the Internet prior to his sale. Authorities used an obscure law enacted under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, which had been traditionally adjudicated through private civil litigation. In 2005, the illmob.org site had posted leaked images and phone book from

Paris Hilton Paris Whitney Hilton (born February 17, 1981) is an American media personality, businesswoman, socialite, model, and entertainer. Born in New York City, and raised there and in Beverly Hills, California, she is a great-granddaughter of Conrad ...

T-Mobile T-Mobile is the brand name used by some of the mobile communications subsidiaries of the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG in the Czech Republic ( T-Mobile Czech Republic), Poland ( T-Mobile Polska), the United States (T-Mobil ...

Sidekick A sidekick is a slang expression for a close companion or colleague (not necessarily in fiction) who is, or is generally regarded as, subordinate to the one they accompany. Some well-known fictional sidekicks are Don Quixote's Sancho Panza, ...

phone that were obtained from a fellow hacker. Reportedly, the data was obtained by social engineering and exploiting a vulnerability in a BEA WebLogic Server database function that allowed an attacker to remotely read or replace any file on a system by feeding it a specially-crafted web request. BEA produced a patch for the bug in March 2003 which

failed to apply. The website was also mentioned in news articles, in connection with

Fred Durst William Frederick Durst (born August 20, 1970) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, actor, and director. He is the frontman and lyricist of the nu metal band Limp Bizkit, formed in 1994, with whom he has released seven studio albums. He ap ...

's sex tape leak which was stolen from his personal email account.

Hackerspace

From 2010 until his resignation in 2016, Genovese co-founded, and was a board member of a 501(3)(c) non-profit

Hackerspace A hackerspace (also referred to as a hacklab, hackspace, or makerspace) is a community-operated, often "not for profit" ( 501(c)(3) in the United States), workspace where people with common interests, such as computers, machining, technology, ...

in Connecticut calle
NESIT
which he helped the local community by offering free classes on various network security topics, personal internet safety, reverse engineering, embedded electronic projects, 3-D Printing, and design. He helped build a virtualized pen-testing lab with a large server farm donation from a pharmaceutical company, where users can simulate attacking and penetrating machines in a safe lab environment.

Consulting

Since 2008, Genovese has reinvented himself as a security consultant, public speaker, and teacher. He does security consulting and performs penetration testing services for worldwide companies . He was also a co-founder and speaker at security conference
eXcon
an
BSides Connecticut (BSidesCT)
in 2011, 2014, 2016, 2017, and 2018. In 2015 he was a panelist at DEF CON 23 in Las Vegas for a charity fundraiser to help a fellow hacker who was stricken with terminal cancer.

References

External links

*http://illmob.org/ *http://willgenovese.com/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Genovese, William Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American computer criminals Computer security specialists