Hackers employ smart marketing techniques

Sep 24, 2007 12:06 GMT  ·  By

Hackers make a lot of money these days, more than many other criminals do - and you know why? It's because they're smart! When they pick a target, they search for something that's going to bring them a lot of cash, no matter how hard it is to hack. If in real life, there are some systems that you can't possibly bypass, on the Web there's nothing fully secure, and hackers will exploit anything they can to get what they want.

Thing is, they also have smart marketing techniques and really clever tactics. Magic bullet attacks are a thing of the past; now they're using multi-layered ones, that bring more money, making them almost impossible to catch; still, this method is also a lot more difficult to apply. As for the marketing part - they want to hack as many users as possible, so how do they do that? They don't go and attack every separate person - it would take them ages and it would be inefficient. Instead, they plant malware on sites with a lot of traffic. It's just like publicity - advertisers don't go to every man out there to tell him about the new shaving product; instead, they place a commercial on TV for all people to see. It's the same thing with hackers.

Sites that involve a lot of money will always get a lot of visitors and vice-versa. This is why Fortune 100 web pages are being targeted, as a report from security giant Symantec has it. And there are two ways to go around this, if you're a hacker that is - either you infect one of these websites with some virus that will get you where you want, either you hack their databases (especially if they're social networks sites) and steal all the data you like. So basically, if your site involves money or a lot or visitors, or even worse, both - then you're bound to get the hackers' attention!