hackers for hire are easy to find

Introduction：

1、Hiring Hackers and Buying Malware is Easy

2、The Business of Hackers-for-Hire Threat Actors

Hiring Hackers and Buying Malware is Easy ♂

　　This money-making opportunity has created an entire cyber crime ecosystem of goods and services. There are a plethora of malware do-it-yourself (DIY) kits; malware development organizations and hackers-for-hire — many located in countries where these activities are not illegal and/or tolerated.

　　There are also numerous other associated services out there that are required to carry out a large successful attack such as malware quality assurance (QA) (yes, it’s true), distribution, and search engine optimization (SEO). All these goods and services can come together to make a cookie-cutter process for the attack originator while also making it nearly impossible to catch them due to all the third-party providers involved.

　　Understanding this black hat hacking and the processes can help you better realize what you’re up against when in IT security field.

　　Attacks and scam

　　There are numerous attacks and scams that almost anyone can pull off when utilizing the numerous underground resources. Here are just a few examples:

　　Installing fake look-a-like antivirus software on PCs that fools users into thinking they have viruses and asking for payment to remove them; often called scareware (even Apple is not immune to this one).

　　Installing key loggers on PCs to capture usernames and passwords for websites. These sites may include banks or online gambling sites where they could transfer money out of and email accounts or social networks to help spread malicious links or programs.

　　Installing malware that looks for and steals specific files for select programs like money management software to obtain sensitive financial details.

　　Accessing a particular website or server so many times it brings it down; performing what’s known as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, which may be done to aid in the process of hacking or just to wreak havoc.

　　Accessing a particular website over and over to increase ad revenues, for instance with pay-per-click campaigns.

　　Installing a proxy program onto someone else’s PC, so they can remotely use their Internet access to perform attacks or do illegal file transfers.

　　Some attacks are targeted towards a particular businesses or organization for the purpose of stealing some sensitive information or large amount of money. But as Gunter Ollmann, vice president of Research at Damballa, has been writing about in his blog, most victims are chosen randomly. The misunderstanding by many businesses that most of these are targeted attacks leads to overall less security. Smaller businesses, for instance, might not feel the need to spend time and money fully securing their network since they’re small and not “vulnerable” because “Who would want to target us?”

　　Process of deploying malware

　　The beauty of this system is you don’t have to know programming — or be technical at all — to create malware and perform attacks. There are free malware creator programs, like the now parked domain of BitTera.C we saw a couple years ago. More powerful DIY kits, such as Zeus (which is alive and well, unfortunately), are sold on the black market for $400 retail or $50 on the street — or, ironically, free via pirated copies.

　　If you’re looking for something even more custom or powerful and have cash to spend, there are endless programmers and hackers-for-hire out there. Custom scripts, antivirus removers, screen grabbers, and password stealers can be purchased for less than $100. Malware loaders can run about $400 and a botnet manager around $800. Some even offer zero-day money-back guarantees so you’re ensured it won’t be caught by antivirus programs right at launch. (How’s that for honor among thieves?)

　　Whether you generate your own malware or pay for it, you might want to be completely ensured it isn’t detectable by the antivirus programs. For this there are independent malware quality assurance (QA) services you can use that run your malware through all the different antivirus engines. Similar to malware sellers, they may too offer a zero-day guarantee.

　　Depending upon your particular attack and technique, you might also need to setup some overhead resources to pull the whole thing off. For instance, if you’re deploying a fake antivirus program or running a phishing scam you may need to setup a website: maybe copy another attacker’s site, put one together yourself, or pay to have it done. For even more of a fake fa?ade, you might even pay for outsourced phone support that suspecting victims can call to get reassurance.

　　Once you have your malware created and tested, you have to distribute it. You could use Web crawlers to get email addresses and use mass mailer programs to send spam. However there are pay-per-install (PPI) services to help automate the process and uses multiple distribution channels. One channel may include botnets (a network of infected PCs (called bots) that can be controlled remotely and act as proxies to spread your infection). There are botnets out there at this moment with hundreds, thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of bots. You can rent these bot PCs or install more malware on them by going directly to the botnet owners. Or, if you’re really into the malware game, create your own botnet.

　　Flooding a website, server, or network with traffic to perform a DDoS attack or traffic is typically made possible by botnets. There’s even a name given to these special botnets, called a DoSnet (denial of service network). You could create your own DoSnet or, like with botnets, rent usage of bots from an existing DoSnet owner.

　　Want to know more?

　　To learn even more about hacking and malware, consider studying for the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) certification given through the EC-Council. You’ll learn the common exploits, vulnerabilities, techniques used by hackers to better understand the counter measures you should take as an IT security professional.

　　For hands-on experience, consider downloading — at your own risk — a malware DIY creator kit on an old PC. A safer option is experimenting with the BackTrack live CD. Also visit Hack This Site to test and expand your skills. To meet and network with others in the hacker community, attend a DEF CON conference or local meeting.

　　Always remember, don’t attack or hack anyone else’s network or PC without full written permission! It’s probably best to use your hacking skills to better IT security and doing legal penetration testing.

The Business of Hackers-for-Hire Threat Actors ♂

　　Today's web has made hackers' tasks remarkably easy. For the most part, hackers don't even have to hide in the dark recesses of the web to take advantage of people any longer; they can be found right in plain sight on social media sites or forums, professionally advertised with their websites, and may even approach you anonymously through such channels as Twitter.

　　Cybercrime has entered a new era where people don't steal just for the thrill of doing it anymore. They make it their business to carry out illegal cyber activities in small groups or individually to earn business from online criminals, selling offensive services like spyware as a service or commercial cybersecurity.

　　For instance, a series of new DDoS for Hire are commoditizing the art of hacking and reducing the barrier to launching DDoS attacks.

　　Hackers-for-hire are secret cyber experts or groups who specialize in infiltrating organizations to acquire intelligence in one way or another. They offer their services to people who encounter problems when trying to break into an organization for various reasons, for example, lack of skills necessary for the operation or simply because they cannot do it by themselves.

　　A hacker would like to steal the private email of a person going through a divorce, separation, or child custody case. Why? Because hackers don't mind breaking the law and getting involved in financial and legal disputes as long as they can benefit financially.

　　False information and malicious actions on social media can cause social confusion (not just political).

　　A hackers-for-hire group would attempt to access bank accounts to execute data breaches, which they could sell on the black market at a percentage of the account's current cash balance.

　　Since 2020, Hackers-for-hire has had unprecedented access to computer networks and have posed as hackers and users contracted to perform different kinds of work for them. For example, COVID-19 was seen as a big threat because it gave hackers something that we might see in the future more often-- the ability to use computers via clever public communications channels like Twitter and email.

　　If any of your assets are valuable, and if others have a vested interest in taking these assets away from you, you should expect to be the target of an attack.

　　To get a general overview of the whole process, we can break everything down into three phases that make up a surveillance chain. The first phase involves reconnaissance, where hackers will gather as much information about their target's company or business as they can by using various tools and techniques. This informative phase will then inform phase 2, where hackers will carry out attacks to damage their target.

　　Let's try to understand the working as follows:

　　1 — Reconnaissance

　　In the reconnaissance stage, cyber hackers start as information gatherers and data miners when they start to profile their targets silently. A few examples of how they do this is by gathering information about them from publicly available sources such as blogs, social media, knowledge management platforms like Wikipedia and Wikidata, news media, forums, etc. (this can involve scraping dark websites too).

　　2 — Engagement

　　During the Engagement phase, an attacker, using the power of social engineering, tries to build trust with you and uses that as a way to gain your confidence and trick you into sharing confidential information. The attacker's objective is to get you excited about clicking on what they might refer to as a "special link" or downloading a file that they say will give you more details. Social engineering is a form of manipulation that might be directed through tricking, deceiving, or even blackmailing an individual. By talking to the people, you are after information, you can eventually gain access or manipulate them into answering your questions.

　　3 — Exploitation

　　A hacker's primary objective during the exploitation stage is to gain access to surveillance for mobile phones or computers.

　　A hacker can access personal data on a victim's phone or computer by taking advantage of keyloggers and phishing websites. These elements allow them to steal sensitive information like passwords, cookies, access tokens, photos, videos, messages, and more. They may be able to hack into the microphone on your cell phone or the camera on your computer to activate them even without your knowledge.

　　Cybercriminals have a soft spot for targeting companies that would have access to sensitive information like social security numbers, credit card details, etc. They target every kind of organization, including financial, Hospitals, cellular equipment vendors, and radio and satellite communication companies in the hope of exposing sensitive details. Sometimes they focus on individuals like CIOs, Human rights activists, workers like journalists, politicians, telecommunications engineers, and medical doctors, etc.

　　By far, the most common attack when it comes to hacking is phishing. Many cybercriminals will use this method as a starting point and generally do not go further than the compromise of email accounts and data exfiltration. This means that threat actors don't necessarily need any malware because basic social engineering tricks can be enough.

　　But what can we do at our end to safeguard our critical assets from prying eyes? Let's discuss the top four ways.

　　— Scan your Assets

　　With a vulnerability assessment service, you'll be able to identify common security vulnerabilities in your websites and applications and related libraries that are likely a result of weak coding. It can then be passed onto an application developer so they know what holes in the code they might need to patch up.

　　— Pen Testing

　　Penetration testing is detecting and analyzing potential security vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit. Penetration testing, also known as ethical hacking, white hat hacking, or security testing, is a type of validation testing used to attack a computer system to find vulnerabilities within the target application, network, or device.

　　— Keep Apps Up-To-Date

　　If you're seeking to beef up your application's security, an important aspect is constant sync testing and patching of web applications, which need to be protected. An organization needs to be able to stay on top of new threats and vulnerability patches as soon as possible, so it's necessary to update your security suite regularly.

　　— Prepare to Block Attacks

　　No matter how well you ensure your network is guarded against hackers, there will always be cyber-criminals just waiting for the right opportunity to wreak havoc with attacks like DDoS.

　　A way to thwart the biggest and most powerful cyber-attack is to ensure that you have an anti-DDoS cyber shield in place. AppTrana WAF, from the Indusface, stops malicious traffic to keep hackers away from the site.

　　Information security researchers believe that to effectively detect and repair web application security vulnerabilities, individuals/groups should adopt a combination of static and dynamic web application testing methods backed by a web application firewall for instant virtual patching for the detectable defects within your system.

Hiring Hackers and Buying Malware is Easy ♂

The Business of Hackers-for-Hire Threat Actors ♂

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