Have you ever been hacked?

[wickednick]

Every time I see a internet service provider's commercial on tv like Aol or MSN, they are always talking about its great anti-hacking features.Also they always talking about these anti-hacking features with a family smiling happily away nearby.
Now my question is have you ever had your computer hacked?
Personally I think the Hacker issue has been blown way out of proportian.Hackers are not looking to hack into the average persons computer, and I'll tell you why.For one the Hacker needs to know who you are, they can't just pop into your computer one day and steal everything, or mess it up.Two, Hackers are not looking for the average person, they are looking to hack either specific individuals, or specific websites.
I never have been hacked and no one that I know has been hacked.



Post Edited (12-17-03 04:34)

[Ash]

Someone tried to hack me with a machete once but I dodged it.

Hehe...Just kidding!

No, I've never been hacked.

[onionhead]

Never been hacked, but I've been pretty wasted on occasion.

[ulthar]

wyckednick wrote:

> Now my question is have you ever had your computer hacked?

Well, first of all, technically the correct term is "cracked."  A Hacker is simply an expert programmer; there is no ill intention necessary in a hacker.  The term is COMPLETELY misused in the media.

I have had numerous cracking attempts .. and other than the typical trojans and spyware crap, none successful.  If you have dsl or cable modem with a firewall, check your firewall logs - I am sure you are getting scanned and probed quite consistently.

> Personally I think the Hacker issue has been blown way out of
> proportian.Hackers are not looking to hack into the average
> persons computer, and I'll tell you why.For one the Hacker
> needs to know who you are, they can't just pop into your
> computer one day and steal everything, or mess it up.Two,
> Hackers are not looking for the average person, they are
> looking to hack either specific individuals, or specific
> websites.

That's not quite true.  A cracker is looking for ANY vulnerable computer they can find, and yes, they DO look for random "average person" computers.  Why?  Because if they can gain control of such a computer, they can use it to launch the attack on the system they are really targetting, thereby in part covering their tracks.  All attack attempts on the target will log the IP address (and maybe host name) of "average person" computer, not the cracker's true node.   Chain several together, and the trail becomes that much harder to find.  For example, this is used in the so-called "Distributed Denial of Service Attack."

Also, if one gains control of an 'average person' computer, it IS possible in some instances to find name, credit card info, etc. stored on that computer.  If you do a lot of online shopping, and you click those little boxes that say something like "save my info for next time" so you don't have to keep entering your name/credit card info, well, guess where that is stored??  To the thief, it is worth the time/effort to randomly probe open ports, attempt to gain access, and get such info.

Finally, aol and those guys are playing into the media hype that has been stirred up recently on so-called "identity theft."  People store a LOT of info in their aol profiles and stuff, as well as on their own computers, and there is a rather aggressive ad campaign (by CitiBank, I think) right now trying to 'scare' people into using various protective services.  This is fueled by movies such as "The Net."

> I never have been hacked and no one that I know has been
> hacked.
>

I do.  And I know people who have done the cracking.  For example, I know of someone who remotely gained control of a friend's computer and programmed it to switch the function of the mouse buttons.  He did that to show his friend simply that it can be done (and his friend did nothing 'special' to make it possible for him).  It DOES happen.

However, I will say that the general tone of your post, that AOL, et al, are trying to use fear of something that is not generally understood by the 'average user' to sell their product is absolutely correct.

[trekgeezer]

The main thing someone has to worry about  at home  are operating system exploits(i.e. MSblaster) and getting infected with a worm or a back door program  (ususally attached to email).  A computer hacker is  usually targeting a company or specific individual to either damage their data in some way  or just for heck of doing it an getting away with it.

An interesting book about one of the first hackers that the FBI ever tracked down is Clifford Stoll's  Cuckoo's Egg. Cliff is a Berkeley astronomer and had a very hard time getting anyone to take him seriously about someone using their computers to break into DOD computers.  It's really amazing to see how he constantly got blown off  by Federal officials over this.

[raj]

When I was running a webserver at my old job, the machine did get hacked/cracked a few times.  Twice it was a major headache, but usually the attempts were thwarted -- I just had to keep updating the security patches.

[Mr_Vindictive]

I work at an ISP and see quite a bit of cracking going on almost constantly.  Especially with broadband.  

I also do in home tech work off time and have seen some crazy stuff go on.  One family was in utter confusion.  They had a cable connection and had set up a wireless connection in their home.  Their 12 y/o son's computer was upstairs and it was the one having the major trouble.

It seems that someone had gained remote access to the computer and was moving around the icons and such.  My assumption was that the kid went onto a porn site and had downloaded some type of file to allow remote access. (think VNC viewer).

I could not find any type of evidence of the file.  I could not see it running in the background, startup, taskbar, etc.  My first question was: "Well you have a Wi-Fi setup, but do you have any firewall protection?"  Neither computer had a firewall.  I immediatly went on to add BlackIce to both PCs.  I ended up Fdisking the sons computer per the family's request.

It's very easy to get "hacked" or "cracked".  Programs like XSharez makes this all the more easier.  Pop in an IP range and you have access to everything on a person's computer.  

Speaking of XSharez, please people; quit putting shortcuts to your registry on your desktop.  I mean come on!  Usually I leave notes on their desktops to let them know that it is a security risk and to fix it.  

So yes, I crack.  But I'm a white hat.  If I find a flaw on a site or security flaws on someone's computer, I let them know about it.  

Just my two cents.

[trekgeezer]

Most people don't realize that being on a cable modem is basically like being on a big LAN. Everyone with broadband should at least be behind a router that DHCP's NAT numbers to the PCs connected to it .

[jmc]

I fell victim to identity theft back in the spring.  It was a huge hassle, involved EBay, Paypal, and my ISP, caused my rent check to bounce [and I had to get my bank to plead with them to not charge me a ton of late fees] and was probably one of the most stressful things that's happened to me in a long time.   It seemed like every time I turned the computer on something bad happened.
It took about a week to resolve, and my wife and I became regulars at our bank.

So it does happen.  I haven't used Paypal since.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Identity theft using paypal?

Thanks for the heads up jmc.

[trekgeezer]

We discovered a charge on our phone bill once and when my wife called them they said it was for  an internet answering service. We had not signed up for anything like this. I went to the website for this service and used my email to login and requested they send me the password.  They emailed it to me and I went back and logged in to the site and sure enough they had more correct  name, address, and email.

I have no idea how they did this or who did it .  I 've never had anything else like this happen since, but it was scary.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Yeah, identity theft is a huge problem.  If everyone was properly educated about the dangers of iden. theft and the like then the problem would definently disappear.

People just don't take the internet seriously.  They don't take privacy seriously either.

[The Burgomaster]

Someone got my credit card number from an order I placed online.  They only charged about $75 on it, which I didn't have to pay.

[wickednick]

Well I guess I stand corrected.I am on a cable modem, and do not have a firewall.I used to have a firewall but I found it caused problems all the time when I was trying to play a game online so I got rid of it.I still think that the hacking issue has been blown out of proportion and people and some people are being more paironoid about it than they should be.I stay pretty safe and am very cautious in downloading files from websites.I do a lot of online shopping though.
Also I have a question Skaboi.I use a Mac and from what I have heard that Macs tend to be realativly safe from hacking because most hackers don't use Macs and are not familar with there programming.Is this true.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Wyckednick,

Although Macs are more stable than a Windows based computer, they are still open to attack.  Windows computers are very open to attacks especially due to Billy Gates' great idea to include DCOM in Win XP.

Most viruses will not affect Macs but you still need to look out for credit card theft and things of that nature.  And I would highly advise you putting a firewall back on your Mac.  

Unless you are routing out your connection.  If you are, check your router or hub to see if it has a built in firewall.  If so, then you should be safe.