odd topic for me, but why not?

Hacker: A person(s) that uses sensitive information or gains access to such via backend shifty, shady, black hat ways… Otherwise known as: Spammers, Phishers (phising is still strong), Crackers, Crackz, Serialz, and I could go on… ..

It’s not uncommon know a days, when you go to a site you like or frequent, only to see that it’s down. It might say ‘down for maintenance’ or sometimes, it might even say ‘this site hacked by xx’ in huge bold letters, to let everyone know and see their achievement. Do they get rep for this? Is it a hacker vs. hacker world? Nope - they target anyone and everyone. They may have a purpose, they may just want to know that ‘they still got it’, or to simply see if they can get away with it.

Sucks for anyone that falls victim to it. Frankly, I’ve been there - I’ve had to move sites, pull backups, change all my settings/servers etc. and it’s NOT fun. So how much would it be worth to you - if YOU were a big .com - to have someone ‘quietly take down your competition’. No, that was not a typo - in this game it happens all the time.

A digital hitman is sent to see what they can fuss with on any given site that they are assigned by their ‘client’. If one competitor holds half your potential revenue, imagine how valuable ‘having them down for a week’ can be for you and your branding… .. say if you were… .. doing a big marketing blitz, conveniently JUST while they were down? Yeh, you get the idea… It’s real people - and happens every day.

So now let’s think about this scenario. I actually enjoy being in the know - when it comes to blackhat and grayhat marketing. I would never practice it but just knowing what the limits are, and what the possibilities are in this world… .. just fascinates me - AND teaches you to be a MUCH better white hat marketer - trust me.

Having said that - what happens when you put a few thousand of these blackhat marketers under the same roof? You try to put up and promote a blackhat community, to share and swap ideas, to engage yourself into a whole array of dirty sneaky illegal and wrong practices. To learn how to better protect yourself - and if you’re like me, to also see if YOUR OWN products are in there being chopped

Are these bad people in these BH forums? Nope - in fact - I’d say about 80% are there like me - to get educated and know their limits - they are actually very nice people and no different than any white hat. The other 20%, well I have no opinion of them. They participate in or share things that they perhaps shouldn’t, however they perhaps should - so we can see viable proof that this stuff does exist and it is real. Would it be better to be naive? Ignorance is bliss? I think not.

So the point to my rant today - I went to one of these forums today - only to find - that it had been hacked!! I couldn’t help but kind of sit back and laugh. I know its not funny to the owners though, it’s a busy forum! It was on it’s way to do some big things and probably still will - but while it is down - well, they are losing money, respect, and perhaps their competitors are all having a little giggle (or now paying their digital hitman for a good job).

Protect yourself people! Back your sites up, back your clients sites up, and if YOU are a hacker, please at the very least - believe in karma.

Norb.