Belsat.eu has contacted information security experts to find out how much your correspondence in social networks costs.
The sensational case of the detained members of a hacker group, which for 3 years bugged about 2,000 citizens of Belarus, has caused a lot of debate in the Bynet. “Is it the KGB removing competition? After all, the court did not explain why my phones were tapped in 2010,” said in his Facebook the literary scholar and political scientist Alyaksandr Fyaduta.
“The KGB is in a mess. One unit does not know what the other is doing,” ironically wrote in his Facebook Belarusian photographer Anton Motolko.
At the moment we know that the victims of hackers were Belarusian officials, journalists and representatives of the local business. It is possible that this list has your name, too.
Ukrainian expert in information security are sure that 95% of victims of the hacker group were wiretaped via a trojan on their phones. “They (the Trojans – Belsat.eu) allow for a long-distant engagement of the microphone and listening to the people via the infected smartphone. Such a person always has a bug in his own pocket. Perhaps your hackers got burnt buying Chinese bugs when they decided to wiretap some places,” expert believes.
“There are three subtypes of private wiretapping: software, hardware and organization based. Software-based involves the program on a smartphone. It does not cost much and is bought by all those who have extra money, even jealous wives. Hardware-based one uses fake base stations and traffic analysis. This is done by big businesses and their internal security service. And organizational ones are done via carriers. It is when there is a connection with the cops, etc.” explains the expert in information security.
In the Russian segment of the Internet it is not difficult to find pages with offers of hacking services. But this does not mean that the victim and the executor must come from the same country. Trojans could be put on the smartphone from anywhere in the world.
“Those who order and those who execute the wiretapping usually do not know the whereabouts of each other. I honestly do not know about Belarusian hacker sites or forums that are operating solely in Belarus – it is a small market. In the Ukrainian and Russian darknet this business is growing at full speed,” said the Belarusian IT expert, who wished to remain anonymous.
If you want to hack your husband’s phone or find out about the secret correspondence or your wife, you will have to pay up to $1,500 – the approximate cost of the work of Kyiv hackers.
“In Kyiv, putting a Trojan on the smartphone costs about $30-50. Its development costs $1000-1500. Wiretapping in the business segment can cost from $1,000 to $25,000, in which case the expensive equipment, of course illegal, is usually bought by a detective agency or the representatives of the criminal world. The cost of such equipment depends on who is selling it to whom,” said Ukrainian expert in data security.
“The cost of hacking your account (Facebook, Vkontakte, Skype) is from $1,000 to $1,500 when it is made by an expert. And the perpetrator does not have to be from Belarus. It is enough to send a person a message that is similar to a letter from the website you want to hack, with reference to a site that completely copies the design of the website that you want to hack- and voila! The user sends a hacker his login and password. It is even easier to do this if the attacker has physical access to your computer or smartphone. It is easy to obtain and copy the SIM card under an invalid power of attorney for a passport or through friends in the offices of mobile operators, and having access to a phone number that is bound to an account, you can send a password for this account,” said the expert in the Belarusian darknet and hacker schemes .
