Need to do some digital breaking-and-entering but don’t have the skills? Don’t worry, anew website by the name of Hacker’s List provides a space for you to find your dream hacker, ready to undertake your computer crimes for you.
According to the New York Times, the site seeks to match hackers with people looking to gain access to email accounts, take down unflattering photos from a website or gain access to a company’s database. In less than three months of operation, over 500 hacking jobs have been put out to bid on the site, with hackers vying for the right to do the dirty work.
It is done anonymously, with the website’s operator collecting a fee on each completed assignment. The site offers to hold a customer’s payment in escrow until the task is completed.
One user is willing to pay anywhere from $100 to $1,000 for anyone who can remove a “false” and “defamatory” blog post. Another user is willing to spend $300 to $600 to change a final grade. Another wants her boyfriend’s Gmail and Facebook accounts hacked to find out if he is cheating on her. And a man in Sweden is willing to pay $2,000 to someone who will hack into his landlord’s website.
The Hacker’s List site represents a frightening new step in the world of hacking. Finding a hacker to do your bidding is typically a daunting task for webgoers who aren’t very savvy, because it often involves exploring the “deep web,” which most users don’t even know how to access. But this new site makes it shockingly easy to find and pay hackers to carry out cyber attacks, and it opens up a world of possibilities to nearly anyone with malicious intent.
