Hackers forums share tips on hacking

How do we perceive a hacker? A hacker is someone whom we consider to be an anti-social element, who prefers to stay in his dark room, with his computer, tapping on his keyboard and trying to manipulate the lives of others. In no way, a hacker seems to be a socially active person.

But wait! There is another side of a hacker. They communicate, and in a big way that too.

Imperva researchers have researched on hackers’ forums and have some interesting revelation to make. Hackers do have their online communities as hackers’ forums, though they are not easily accessible. These forums are highly important for hackers as they use them as a platform to share their knowledge. They offer a lot of information and support to the interested newbie on how to get started. It is almost like a community where one member helps the other to grow and prosper.

These forums not only share knowledge but recruit new talent, collaborate with each other, and buy and sell data and tools.

Imperva CTO Amichai Shulman said “Studying hacker forums is essential to providing critical insights into hacker psychology and technical strategies.”

Imperva used content analysis tools to analyze the chats of hackers over a year. They found that the hackers spent 25% of their time in forums, offering information to beginners. 22% of the tutorial-style discussions were related to hacking tools and programs while 21% focused on how to hack websites and forums. It was also found that tips on social engineering like how to get the log in password information and other details were also shared through these forums. Imperva confirmed that the study was based on one hacker forum only.

Through the research, Imperva also discovered that a lot was discussed on the ways to attack DDoS. Discussions on attack have grown up to 157% over the past four years. And of late, the focus has been on mobile hacking, especially the iPhone.

Apart from these, stolen data, such as credit cards information accompanied by birth dates and other personal information are on sale on these forums.