Test: Checking Email Resilience to Hacking
In this chapter, we primarily discuss email; however, the proposed testing method can also be applied to social media accounts and messenger accounts.
Most users have their email linked to various services, and hacking an email allows an attacker to gain access to them. If you take your data security seriously and are studying our course, you are likely using this recommendation, and hacking your email will not lead to the compromise of accounts linked to that email. However, agree that it is unpleasant if someone gains access to the contents of your email. In the past, the hacking of personal email cost Hillary Clinton the presidency of the United States, and hacker Fly was sent behind bars.
Let’s simulate a situation where your adversary, for example, a business competitor, orders a hack of your email, and we will order it ourselves. This will be a great test of your account's protection, so to speak, an action in advance.
First, you need to find a hacker or a service that provides email account hacking services. It is not necessary to dive into the Deep Web; just enter "email hacking" in the search, and you will be offered a multitude of services that engage in email hacking. Most of them operate without prepayment, and it is these services that we need.
Some of them are scammers whose only goal is to get money from you; they usually do not even attempt to hack the email. They will ask for a prepayment, and you can politely thank them and say goodbye.
But there are more cunning scammers. After a while, such a scammer will inform you that the victim's email has been successfully hacked, and to confirm this, they sent you an email from the hacked account through their program. However, since the sending was done through a program, the email likely ended up in spam. Naturally, after this, the "hacker" will ask for money for their work. Remember, there is no program, nor is there any email hacking; in this case, a simple address spoofing is used, and such emails are immediately sent to spam by email services.
You may also encounter extortionists who, upon receiving the order, will start blackmailing you. Their proposal usually boils down to this: either you pay money, or they pass all the information about your order to the victim and/or to law enforcement agencies. As you understand, in our case, this is not scary.
Among scammers and extortionists, there are also real services that begin testing your email inbox for resilience against various hacking methods. I do not want to describe the process in detail, as it will affect the effectiveness of the test. You will have to decipher the techniques used yourself.