Cracks online: what? where? how and how much?

Is it interesting for you with whom does your beloved correspond? Would you like to know with whom do your friends communicate?

Hundreds of sites in the Internet take up to satisfy curiosity. Yandex and Google give thousands of pages upon these questions. Somebody offers to crack the accounts and mail boxes by means of special program; somebody works so to speak per order personally. A part of these proposals are ordinary flimflam lotteries. Somebody actually provides such services. Thus how well private information in the Internet has been protected and how someone can get an access to it.

In actual fact there are not so many tools for account cracking and getting accesses/passwords. Most of them can be used only by the programmers.

The simplest and most safety from them is a brute-force attack. Most often this method is used not by hackers but the curious familiar ones, marrieds or jealous lovers. Advantages of this method are evident; there is no risk and complaints from the injured person. Especially if you need only to have a look in order to check partner’s loyalty and to know with whom a teen-ager communicates. Averagely a number of accounts cracking by this way in the social nets and ICQ is about 1,5%.

But in most cases someone is interested in getting the passwords of accounts with not so innocent purposes. The target of a large part of hackers is the private information, money, possibility to send spam, fraud and blackmail.

However the hackers also use a possibility to get a password by-hand. Owners of accounts with the simple passwords continuously risk that their pages will become accessible to the strangers. Especially if the password is for example child’s name whose signed photo has been put out in the album. Moreover about 10 % of the users indicate as the password their birthdates and in addition 4 % of the users use birthdates of their closed people and pets’ names, 5% of the users indicate as password their login. About 30 % of the people use the same password for all their accounts. Except manual crack there is special software assigned to select passwords – so-called brute-programs. Only payment systems have protection from the brute-software.

But it is enough simple to protect from brute-force attacks manually or automatically: a password should be complicated with length more than eight characters and consist from letters, figures and punctuation marks.

Price of ICQ cracking by means of brute-force attack is within the range of 20 – 1500 rubles.

This crack method is available only for a professional programmer. As a rule this method is used to crack private sites, business card sites, blogs. Sql-request is entered into any text field of the site. If the site has no protection a hacker gets an access to the all closed information which has on the site.

Based upon gossips which wander in the Internet the crack of Facebook social net about a year ago was made exactly by this method. Then confidential information about 10000 users of this service got to the common access. After that event service protection has been enforced. The Russian large social networks have enough powerful protection from Sql-attacks.

A crack by means of Sql-request is a tender situation which requires experience and patience as today most of sites have protection from this type of cracking. For example to crack ICQ site by means of this method is impossible.

Price to crack site by means of this method equals 50-1000 dollars.

The most frequently-used method of account cracking is embedding of Trojan virus to the victim’s computer. These viruses are several types. One of them reads information about the passwords keeping in the browsers and cookies. That’s why the programmers do not recommend saving logins and passwords from the sites and account on the sites themselves. The second type of harmful programs is keylogger. They read clicks directly from the keyboard and separate from them all combinations which are like to the logins and passwords. Then the brute-program selects the passwords from the read combinations and cracks an account.

Before start working the Trojan virus should enter to a computer. Entry may be made by three ways. The first one is embedding of a virus from the phishing site. However most of the firewalls “see” such “phishers” a mile off and notify the users that this resource is not safe. The second method is to embed a virus through the special archives. At archive opening the program start is happened. But users opening all received mail without distinction become less and less with each day. So this method will suit rather to someone who wants to get passwords of their familiar and closed people. The third method to “plant” a “horse” to stranger’s computer is to enter harmful code to any useful program. In this case virus will come to victim’s computer passing by the firewall. As a rule such programs are enough inoffensive and implement their main function. But Trojan virus works under this cover.

Most of all programs having harmful codes are faced on the sites spreading various free software of entertaining nature. Very much so, that a nice pet – virtual tamagotchi locating on your desktop is infected with dangerous parasites. Very often the Trojan viruses contain in the games and other applications input in the social nets such as inContact. Besides the site administration frankly notifies that does not bear responsibility to the users playing in such applications.

Price of account crack in the social net, ICQ or another resource by means of the Trojan virus may be from several tens up to several thousands dollars. It depends on what computer is to be cracked and with what purpose.

This service feeds the small army of the hackers. They are often addressed for help and asked “to crack a person” completely, i.e. to get all passwords from all accounts on the sites, mail servers, in ICQ and Mail-agent. Price of such service is enough high beginning from 150 dollars. There is no upper price limit for this service. When crack has been ordered hackers use all above methods to crack Internet-pages.

Among ordinary Internet users mainly anxious parents and jealous lovers are interested in accounts’ cracking. Namely they are ready to spend largish amount of money. One more category of crack customers are so-called virtual acquaintance persons or lovers. These are persons for whom communication in the Internet put in the forefront. They order cracks of accounts and mail boxes of their friends and lovers in order to search out the truth about their vis-à-vis as the Internet is anonymous in point of fact.

The most part of the crackers are Internet-swindlers of all types and kinds. The basic mass of cracks is made by them in order to create databases of e-mails and uin-numbers of ICQ for spam-bots or direct distribution of spam.

The separate category is swindlers cracking ICQ and accounts in order to blackmail their owners. Most often they offer to transfer the new passwords for payoff equaling from 500 rubles up to 1000 dollars.

Lately this type of cracking have been improved. Now the entered Trojan virus not only transmits victim’s coordinates to his master but locates a plate containing a message about crack and a request to transfer the specified amount to the certain account or to send SMS-message to the short number on the desktop. As a rule SMS-message costs several times more expensive than it is indicated in the plate. Generally swindlers disappear without unblocking services.

Actually the passwords have not always been stolen. Sometimes it has happened that after the threatened messages people use mail, accounts and ICQ without any problem. The second category of swindlers cracks accounts in order to send spam and direct to the familiar users with asking to borrow some money. Happily such “tricks” have succeeded less and less frequently. Most of users have already learnt to find out hackers and reject them in “benefaction”.

The victims of hackers are first of all toilers of keyboard and monitor, i.e. free-lancers working in the net. Hacker’s attention attracts the first pages of specialists rating on IT-exchanges. The reason of it is clear. The free-lancers are people who always have money on the e-account and can transfer it at any moment.

The second type of victims endangered by the hackers are the persons who like to input photos of intimate content in the net. Having closed for review by the strangers these albums will become tit-bit for the hackers who sell such photos and video on the porno-site content exchanges. As a rule such hackers do not flaunt their activities. They use the account as long as possible. More often than not this is finished when user has disclosed that his account has been cracked after finding his intimate photos on some resource.

The third place upon amount of the cracked accounts belongs to show-business stars. Their accounts, mail boxes and blogs are cracked most of all because of the curiosity. Hackers or customers of these cracks are teen-agers or fans.

Crack to an account of typical Internet user does not practically threaten. To be more exact to say he has a couple of Trojan viruses in his computer as a rule. But they in no way show themselves and often are destroyed at replacement of the operating system. In most cases such people are out of some interest for the hackers.

A crack of ICQ, mail box, account in the social nets, private blog or site is criminally liable act on the territory of the Russian Federation. First of all the hackers will be accused per articles 272 “Unjustified access to computer information” and 273 “Development, usage and distribution of harmful programs for computers”. Punishment per these articles is supposed a fine in the amount of two hundred thousand rubles and imprisonment with duration up to two years.

According to article 137 of Criminal Code of RF these activities are considered as violation of integrity of private life, i.e. illegal gathering or distribution of person’s private life information which consists his individual or family secret without his consent. Punishment for this crime is a fine in the amount of two hundred thousand rubles or in the amount of salary or any other income of the condemned person for a period up to eighteen months. Though instead of the fine a hacker can finish compulsory work during a period of 120 – 180 hours or participate in the corrective work for a year or simply lie in prison up to four months.

According to article 138 of Criminal Code of RF hackers violate privacy of correspondence, phone conversation, mail, telegraph or other messages of the citizens. It is punished by fine up to eighty thousands rubles and/or in the amount of salary or other income of the condemned person for a period up to six months. Instead of the fine a hacker can finish compulsory work during a period of 120 – 180 hours or participate in the corrective work for a year.

Optionally this list may be added with some other articles.

Certainly, yes! Even more in Russia there are numerous precedents of hackers’ trials. Hacker victims only have to address to police and write an application. Upon the application a request to the provider will be sent and computer IP-address and its name in the net will be indicated. It allows finding physical location of a machine even in case when the crack has been made from another hemisphere. After that it will be possible to determine human personality responsible for distribution of the harmful software. Is it possible to protect yourself from the cracks?

Theoretically a victim of the hacker may be any Internet user. But someone who observes the rules of safe behavior in the net brings this chance to nothing.

Tell your opinion