#5 Shawn Carpenter

Leak: Existence of Chinese hackers infiltrating U.S. government computers (2005)

Shawn Carpenter is an American Navy veteran and whistleblower (previously employed by Sandia National Laboratories) who tracked down a Chinese cyberespionage ring that is code-named Titan Rain by the FBI. He came to national attention when his story was reported on in the September 5, 2005 issue of Time magazine.

Carpenter was an employee of Sandia National Laboratories, investigating security breaches in its networks. However, upon tracking several breaches of Sandia, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Redstone Arsenal, and even NASA, dating back to 2003, Carpenter noticed patterns that began to appear to link the attacks to a single group. He was impressed by the meticulous, voracious and incredibly fast manner (sometimes completed in less than 30 minutes) in which the hackers operated. Such observations led him to alert the federal government of his findings.

After learning of his work for the FBI, Sandia fired him. Carpenter sued for wrongful termination and won a $4.3 million settlement.

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