Why Hackers Hack: For hackers, WordPress websites are a common subject. Every day, 714 new WordPress pages are developed, making WordPress the world’s fastest-growing content management service. This kind of popularity has an expense. It comes with a goal set on the back of it. This explains why hackers chose more than any other CMS to attack WordPress, but the question remains, what do hackers benefit from website hacking?
Websites may be compromised because hackers have learned how to use each website for a reason or at random. We must first consider the motives of the hackers, who can be classified into three categories, in order to understand the exact essence of the payoff:
- Hacktivists
- White-hat hackers
- Black-hat hackers
Hacktivists
Hacktivists are considered hackers who hack websites with the intention of increasing consciousness about an issue. Hacktivists deface website pages a lot of the time and inject a bit of classified information that they want tourists to see. Take the leak in the Panama Papers where hacktivists hacked into websites of the CIA and FBI, stole official information and released it online later. Hacktivists defaced the ISIS website another time with performance-enhancing drugs. A matter of debate is whether hacktivism is a felony. While supporters scream that it is a means of freedom of speech, critics complain that it is property trespassing that does harm to the visibility of the brand.
White-Hat Hackers
Since they search for bugs that can be recorded responsibly, these hackers do not have malicious intentions. White-hat hackers are usually developers themselves or are part of a protection team responsible for weeding out bugs, thereby leading to a stable experience for the WordPress group.
Black-Hat Hackers
Black-hat hackers are the ones that, for their own benefit, exploit vulnerabilities. Generally, they are hated and despised because they frequently hack into websites in order to rob or alter or exploit the site’s services. In general, most black-hat hackers do not attack individual websites and they do not aim to push an ideology like hacktivists or seek unique flaws for the public good. They mainly use Kali Linux and are no newcomers to discovering usernames and passwords to hack WordPress websites using brute-forcing techniques.
Why Hacking WordPress Pages by Hackers?
Their intention can be divided into 3 categories, namely:
- For Reputation
- Exploitation of Resource
- Access to Information
For Reputation:
It is possible to split Black-hat hackers who want a prestige in the hacking world into two kinds: seasoned hackers and script kiddies.
Amateurs who use readily-available software to hack into websites are script kiddies. Their primary aim is to obtain respect from their peers, and they typically have no sinister motives. The hacking culture also counts, in addition to the technological skills, the spree that one hacker will build on his own. Since amateurs are script kiddies, it is a learning opportunity to execute hacks for them. It’s a path to greater maturity in the hacker world and greater credibility and recognition. When he no longer depends on tools to execute hacking, a script kiddy becomes an expert hacker who can circumvent normal security precautions using the malicious code he crafts.
Experienced hackers are interested in scaling the prestige ladder that will allow them to dominate the group and will also be well paid for their services. There was a website called Darkode several years ago that was almost like an online black market. On the forum, black-hat hackers had accounts and a rating structure was in operation. The rating will depend on factors such as the number of compromised websites, problems experienced during the attack, how large the websites were, and eventually how pleased the consumers were with the service (assuming that the hack was made following a request made by a customer). The higher one was ranked, the greater the appreciation and the more people would pay for their services.
If it’s a large website with a strong reputation, or if hackers had to conquer a wide security hurdle, a group would reverence them. In the use of tools, skilled hackers are also proficient. Not all the data they collect is beneficial to them, so they market them to customers who are willing to pay a hefty price for the data extracted.
Exploitation of Resources
What constitutes a resource on a website? It usually includes the servers of the website, the host of the site, its users as well as visitors. This is what a lot of hackers with black-hats are after. Often hackers break into WordPress with the purpose of using the tools of the website to execute acts such as:
- Attacking other internet pages
- WordPress Sending emails about spam
- Storing archives that are illegal
- Cryptocurrency mining
- Hack WordPress Pharma, etc
Attacking Other Websites
It is dangerous to use one domain to target other websites, since they are easy to trace. Relying on one platform, too, means that the hack operation is doomed if it is blacklisted. This is why new websites that they can use to attack targeted websites are still scavenged by hackers. More websites suggest a broader execution size.
Sending Spam Emails
It was important for anybody who had an email address to come across spam emails. There are inevitable spam communications. Hackers also use hacked websites to deliver spam emails for hundreds of thousands of reasons, such as collecting bank passwords or trafficking illicit drugs, etc. Website owners are ignorant much of the time that their website has been compromised and is being used for delivering spam emails. Hackers like to leave it that way so they can scrub the site, wash out backdoors and the hacker will no longer be able to access the site or use its tools the moment the site owner finds out.
Storing Illegal Files
Hackers also store millions of files, such as shareware, mp3 recordings, pirated movies, which appear to take up storage space on your website a lot. They begin to slow down your web while these files are running on your computer. As web hosts find out, the compromised site is suspended and the site is blacklisted by Google. It guarantees that you lose organic traffic and your image takes a dive.
Mining Cryptocurrency
Bitcoin is the most common crypto-currency today. It is created by a process called ‘mining.’ Bitcoin has become such a rage over the last few years that it has taken a keen interest in the hacker community, particularly people who want to get rich quickly. For this reason, every time a visitor requests a page from the compromised site, they break into websites and install cryptocurrency mines that generate cryptocurrency. It has adverse consequences on the website, such as blacklisting the compromised domain once Google found out.
Pharma Hacks
There are limits on a few prescription products on the internet that allow certain drug makers to hack websites, exploit search results with spammy keywords, and load their pages with ads for illicit drugs. They do this to take advantage of website users who will be repulsed and never visit the website again. Or they will click on the ad and will be routed to the website of the hacker.
Accessing Information
Data is useful, especially for e-commerce websites. This data is not freely accessible and is thus exclusive. Black-hat hackers often hack sites to retrieve passwords or information such as email addresses, medical history, personal interests, photos, financial information, etc. This detail is used by hackers:
- To harm the credibility of critical data publication.
- To sell this online confidential material.
- To blackmail the website from which the details and even else have been retrieved.
Publishing Information Without Consent
It does not need to be all financial information! It is also possible to use data such as email addresses to unleash a huge spam attack. By sharing personal images, such disruptive attempts may be in the line of undermining an individual’s image. If the compromised site performs online commerce, posting customer information would not only damage the establishment’s credibility but also destroy the customers’ confidence.
Selling Information Online
Some trade celebrity data for monetary gains (take the case of Pippa Middleton’s iCloud photos), others target medical data platforms such as social security numbers, healthcare, and medical records. These identity fraud cases show that hackers are not simply targeting financial records. There’s also a legitimate explanation. Hackers have to compete against time to sell financial records, so details such as the password can be altered. In comparison, persons whose information is compromised take prompt precautionary measures, such as transferring banks, blocking cards, etc. Only if they are still true will hackers get a fair deal for stolen financial records. Identity-theft validity is much longer and the gains are also much higher.
Can’t you help but worry about what the buyers are doing with the data? Using the details, buyers:
- Build fake IDs for malicious purposes they use to execute
- Apply for medications prescribed for
- Take banks’ loans
- Get credit cards with the name of someone else.
Since there is a good market for these details that places websites at great risk of some kind of user information. It is not shocking, with gains like the ones we mentioned above, that black-hat hackers are in demand. And since the payoffs are so high, it takes time for hackers to obtain confidential data. Hackers also leave behind backdoors after collecting information that helps them to enter the website later. Therefore, the administrator of the platform must prepare for the worst in advance.