Like are you talking about black hat hackers that make money illegally? Or what are you specifically talking about? There are so many different types of people that could be classified as hackers that it's very hard to answer your question. There could be a McDonald's worker who cracks systems throughout the night but makes no money off of hacking. There could be a Computer Science professor who makes money teaching. Give me specifics and I'll try to answer your question...
There are also those who offer penetration testing and software/network analysis as a service to companies looking to beef up their security. Best of both worlds?
Common black hat tactics of generating illegitimate income:
Hacking web servers in order to enumerate the back-end database. The database often contains juicy bits of information like credit/debit card information, e-mail addresses, and passwords. The first two, cards and e-mail addresses can be sold on the black market for considerable amounts of money. There are many in the underground "carding" community that are willing to pay for stolen credit/debit cards. Similarly, there are many spammers out there that are more than willing to pay for lists of e-mail addresses to spam, especially if there is additional contextual information that will allow them to customize their campaign to better target their newly acquired audience.
Bot-nets can also be very profitable if properly utilized. For example, spammers very often rent access to different aspects of bot networks to utilize for spam purposes. Public proxies are a no-go for spammers as many are intentionally setup as honey pots. Renting private proxy access generates thousands, tens of thousands of dollars, on a weekly if not daily basis for many bot net masters. They're also used to perpetrate click fraud and installation of adware/malware designed to monetize the infection through a number of methods, including but certainly not limited to insertion of contextual advertisements by hijacking browser results.
Let's not forget corporate espionage. I'm not familiar with many incidents of this, though, assumption leads me to believe that this is an on-going practice.
Also, programming in general is obviously capable of generating considerable amounts of revenue in both an illegal as well as legal capacity. Most, if not all, hackers are capable programmers. I've seen bulk-mailing software going for $5,000 per copy. Dependant on the capabilities, this is often a no-brainer purchase as it can be leveraged into much much more money. On the more white hat side of things, penetration testing software fetches a pretty penny with many of them selling for $10,000+ per copy.
Programming will take you places you want to be in life. Black hat hacking often results in your sweet ass being penetrated in federal penitentiary. Choose your path wisely. This isn't a fucking movie, it's your life. Choose wisely how you invest your time and efforts.
More on the topic of bot networks. Bot net masters have been known to blackmail web based companies. "Pay me $50,000 or I'll launch a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that will effectively knock you offline, resulting in losses considerably greater than $50,000." From what I've heard, this is a somewhat common tactic and occasionally results in payout.
Also, when I briefly discussed hacking web servers in order to extract database information. There are a number of bot nets that have been utilized to automate the process of scanning for vulnerable servers and automating the process of extracting the database. This can be a timely endeavor, but, with the parallel processing power of a bot net, this can be accomplished in the blink of an eye.
There's also always been the mercenary hacker. This is probably where the corporate espionage hacker would fall into place. Hacker4Hire. Will spy on your wife, kids, ex-lover, co-workers, enemies, etc etc for money.
What else, what else.
Oh! The best one of all, almost slipped by this post. LEGAL MONEY THROUGH HACKING! Hacking in the wild, attacking publicly facing IP addresses can be dangerous and result in jail time... so rather than risk your precious anal virginity, you can spend a little bit of change and put together a penetration testing laboratory. Once you have a little pen test lab setup, you can *legally* hack your own boxes looking for exploits. Common tactic here is to install web applications on a web server and fuzz their input parameters looking for remotely exploitable vulnerabilities. With companies like ZDI, you can turn sploits into cash money. There are also sketchy unknown third parties that will purchase your exploits for what seem like absurd amounts of money... which I do not suggest as there are consequences. Like not getting paid, getting your kneecaps broken, getting murdered, or going to jail.
Also, with the exchange rate these days, if you reside in the US and sell your exploits to a company in the UK, you can easily make a more than decent living.
toms199668
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2 years ago
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what hackers do for money
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18 December, 2009 - 08:35
parasite
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a friend ask me this and i said a good qestion
so what do hackers do for money
Work smarter not harder
your not living intill your forgotting
Whoop whoop MMFWCL
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18 December, 2009 - 10:18
#1
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What kind?
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Like are you talking about black hat hackers that make money illegally? Or what are you specifically talking about? There are so many different types of people that could be classified as hackers that it's very hard to answer your question. There could be a McDonald's worker who cracks systems throughout the night but makes no money off of hacking. There could be a Computer Science professor who makes money teaching. Give me specifics and I'll try to answer your question...
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18 December, 2009 - 18:30
#2
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additionally
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There are also those who offer penetration testing and software/network analysis as a service to companies looking to beef up their security. Best of both worlds?
-K
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18 December, 2009 - 19:17
#3
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Common black hat tactics of
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Common black hat tactics of generating illegitimate income:
Hacking web servers in order to enumerate the back-end database. The database often contains juicy bits of information like credit/debit card information, e-mail addresses, and passwords. The first two, cards and e-mail addresses can be sold on the black market for considerable amounts of money. There are many in the underground "carding" community that are willing to pay for stolen credit/debit cards. Similarly, there are many spammers out there that are more than willing to pay for lists of e-mail addresses to spam, especially if there is additional contextual information that will allow them to customize their campaign to better target their newly acquired audience.
Bot-nets can also be very profitable if properly utilized. For example, spammers very often rent access to different aspects of bot networks to utilize for spam purposes. Public proxies are a no-go for spammers as many are intentionally setup as honey pots. Renting private proxy access generates thousands, tens of thousands of dollars, on a weekly if not daily basis for many bot net masters. They're also used to perpetrate click fraud and installation of adware/malware designed to monetize the infection through a number of methods, including but certainly not limited to insertion of contextual advertisements by hijacking browser results.
Let's not forget corporate espionage. I'm not familiar with many incidents of this, though, assumption leads me to believe that this is an on-going practice.
Just some shit off the top of my head.
My contact information is invalid at the moment.
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18 December, 2009 - 19:24
#4
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Also, programming in general
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Also, programming in general is obviously capable of generating considerable amounts of revenue in both an illegal as well as legal capacity. Most, if not all, hackers are capable programmers. I've seen bulk-mailing software going for $5,000 per copy. Dependant on the capabilities, this is often a no-brainer purchase as it can be leveraged into much much more money. On the more white hat side of things, penetration testing software fetches a pretty penny with many of them selling for $10,000+ per copy.
Programming will take you places you want to be in life. Black hat hacking often results in your sweet ass being penetrated in federal penitentiary. Choose your path wisely. This isn't a fucking movie, it's your life. Choose wisely how you invest your time and efforts.
My contact information is invalid at the moment.
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18 December, 2009 - 19:43
#5
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More on the topic of bot
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More on the topic of bot networks. Bot net masters have been known to blackmail web based companies. "Pay me $50,000 or I'll launch a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that will effectively knock you offline, resulting in losses considerably greater than $50,000." From what I've heard, this is a somewhat common tactic and occasionally results in payout.
Also, when I briefly discussed hacking web servers in order to extract database information. There are a number of bot nets that have been utilized to automate the process of scanning for vulnerable servers and automating the process of extracting the database. This can be a timely endeavor, but, with the parallel processing power of a bot net, this can be accomplished in the blink of an eye.
There's also always been the mercenary hacker. This is probably where the corporate espionage hacker would fall into place. Hacker4Hire. Will spy on your wife, kids, ex-lover, co-workers, enemies, etc etc for money.
What else, what else.
Oh! The best one of all, almost slipped by this post. LEGAL MONEY THROUGH HACKING! Hacking in the wild, attacking publicly facing IP addresses can be dangerous and result in jail time... so rather than risk your precious anal virginity, you can spend a little bit of change and put together a penetration testing laboratory. Once you have a little pen test lab setup, you can *legally* hack your own boxes looking for exploits. Common tactic here is to install web applications on a web server and fuzz their input parameters looking for remotely exploitable vulnerabilities. With companies like ZDI, you can turn sploits into cash money. There are also sketchy unknown third parties that will purchase your exploits for what seem like absurd amounts of money... which I do not suggest as there are consequences. Like not getting paid, getting your kneecaps broken, getting murdered, or going to jail.
Also, with the exchange rate these days, if you reside in the US and sell your exploits to a company in the UK, you can easily make a more than decent living.
My contact information is invalid at the moment.
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18 December, 2009 - 19:46
#6
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...or you work the
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...or you work the drive-through at mcdonalds during the day and hack .gov boxes at night. Whatever floats your boat.
My contact information is invalid at the moment.
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