The Anti-virus Times

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Can cybercriminals hack into your mailbox? Judging by the number of sensational news stories about correspondence leaks, for them—it’s no problem! You’d think it would be easy for them to hack into the mailboxes of ordinary users given how easily they get hold of the emails of presidential candidates, wouldn’t you? This is far from being the case.

Let’s get to the bottom of this question; we’ll do a Google search for “email hacker for hire”.

Then we’ll visit one of the websites that comes up (if access to it has not yet been restricted by SpIDer Gate) and look at the list of “services”.

Important! Doctor Web doesn’t recommend that users do this because such websites often turn out to be sources for spreading malware.

Now look at what another similar website is trying to persuade us of:

It’s amusing to see cybercriminals assuring us that hacking into someone else’s mailbox is legal. It’s quite a popular trick of theirs: as everyone knows, those who cry the loudest...

Actually, the actions of a hacker (executor), i.e., a person engaged in illegally accessing computer information, which is protected by law, include elements of the crime “Unauthorised access to protected computer information”. In this case, cybercriminals need a password to hack into a mailbox. A password is confidential information that is accessed without the owner’s consent in order to copy the information. But that’s not all, of course.

Typically, to crack a password, criminals need computer programs that are deliberately designed to engage in the unauthorised destruction, blocking, modification, and copying of computer information or the neutralisation of computer information security—and that is the element of another crime (“The creation, use and distribution of malicious computer programs”).

And, a group of individuals who are in collusion, an organised criminal group, a mercenary interest, major damage, and serious consequences are aggravating circumstances that substantially increase the amount of liability.

Moreover, in certain cases, password crackers can also be prosecuted for being a party to crimes committed by their “employers” using the cracked passwords (theft, extortion, incitement to suicide, violation of privacy, causing property damage, illegally obtaining and divulging commercial secrets, treason, espionage, divulging official secrets, etc.). #malware #hacking #password #ligislation #responsibility