Hi, I'm Ryan Levy.

Hi, I'm Ryan Levy.

Hi, I'm Ryan Levy.

Welcome to Cyber reasons's malicious life. Take one hand, maybe an extra finger, but that's it, and you can count with it the number of hackers in

history who have such a reputation such an aura around them as Vladimir Levin.

Perhaps Levin's mystique begins with his image.

Unlike the other notorious hackers of decades past,

Mitnick, McKinnon, Lamo and so on,

only two photographs of Levin exist on the internet.

They're both grainy black and white headshots that looked like they were taken in the 1930s.

In the latter of the two, he looks a bit like young Stalin without the facial hair. Handsome, a lean face with a wide nose, thick lips,

eyebrows that don't quite go all the way and quite clean cut with dark neatly parted hair and dark arresting eyes.

These photos would have been taken in the 80s or 90s, but the aesthetic and his cold emotionless expressions give him an air of an historical figure.

You can imagine one of these photos in an encyclopedia or hanging on the wall of the museum.

Indeed, in the media he is presented as a figure of historical significance.

It's often said that the then 27 year old St. Petersburg-based software systems operator was the quote-unquote first online bank robber.

He made an appearance on many lists of the top 10 greatest hackers or biggest

cyber attacks of all time. But if you read about him for more than a few minutes, you might find that unlike the

midnix, McKinnons and Lamos of the world, seemingly every account of his story is just a paragraph or too long.

Levin, as is often told, worked with a crew of Russian criminals to break into Citibanks

computer systems and steal 1010.7 million.

It was a remarkable feat, yet the exact details you'll find tend to be glossed over. There's information about his capture and sentencing, but precious

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