Here's what can go wrong if you decide to use a "hacking" service

Aug 8, 2013 19:26 GMT  ·  By

If you’ve ever thought about trying to hack into someone’s Facebook account, you should know that many of the tools offered online are actually part of schemes that can turn the wannabe hacker into the victim.

A perfect example is a French site uncovered by security researcher Joshua Long. The site claims it allows users to easily hack any Facebook account.

It also purports to offer Facebook penetration testing and account recovery services.

However, as Long highlights, the website has its own login systems. So if users make the mistake of registering an account, they might be handing their own accounts over to cybercrooks.

That’s because many internauts use the same username/password combination for multiple online accounts. The scammers might try to use the information delivered to them to access the “customers’” accounts.

As far as the Facebook hacking service is concerned, wannabe hackers are told they must send a couple of SMSs to a certain short number. By doing so, they get some codes that they can use to confirm payment for the hacking service.

The costs of the service are not mentioned anywhere, so the “hacker” doesn’t know how much he’s paying.

Of course, the service doesn’t work. Instead, the scammers end up with a phone number, which they can use for spam, or sell to other marketers and fraudsters.

In addition, each of the sent SMSs costs the victim a certain amount of money. Some users reported that each of the sent messages was charged with €4.50 ($6).

“So the moral of the story is that you should never trust sites that claim to let you hack into someone’s account (or, for that matter, any sites that are advertised via spam),” Long advises.