Samy Kamkar

About

Samy Kamkar is an American privacy and security researcher, computer hacker, and entrepreneur. Born on December 10, 1985, he gained prominence at a young age for creating the Samy worm, a cross-site scripting worm that spread rapidly across MySpace in 2005. This worm added over a million users as friends and displayed a message on their profiles, making it the fastest-spreading virus of its time. Kamkar's actions led to a raid by the U.S. Secret Service and a subsequent felony charge, resulting in probation and community service. Kamkar has since focused on ethical hacking and vulnerability assessments. He co-founded Fonality, a unified communications company, and has worked on projects like SkyJack, a drone capable of hacking other drones, and Evercookie, a persistent tracking cookie. His research on mobile phone tracking led to significant privacy hearings and lawsuits. Kamkar continues to contribute to cybersecurity through his work and public engagements, emphasizing the importance of security awareness and ethical practices in the digital age.