Ratters on the prowl: Is your e-life being remote-controlled? A hacker can pry on you through the webcam, and use it to annoy, bully and blackmail you It is Saturday night and Suzanne (name changed) is in her Miami home, hunched over her laptop. The house is quiet, save for the keyboard tapping, when a message from nowhere pops on her screen: Hi Suzy. The 19-year-old feels a chill. She is visible from afar on a hackers computer. He has taken control of her machine with a remote administration tool, rat in short, and is now able to see her through the webcam, rummage her files and listen in through her microphone. Next, her mouse and keyboard freeze and a Notepad file starts typing - by itself. She looks up: the tiny light beside her webcam glows. She gazes fearfully into the lens, wondering if someones watching, when a message pops again, saying the hacker knows all about her. To prove it, he starts talking about her room, the colour of her walls, the pattern on her sheets, and her Facebook messages. Scared out of her wits, she reaches for the power switch and flicks it off. Far away, the hacker, Sachin, opens his control panel, on which he can see all his victims, or slaves, through their webcams. Besides providing a host of fun tools for messing with his slaves, the panel shows their locations and the status of their machines. I can hide their Windows Start button or the taskbar or the clock or the desktop or record their keystrokes and, thereby, their passwords, he says in an email interview. Ratting is easy, says Sachin. It is the setting up of the software which is difficult. For those who cant manage on their own, best-seller author Sachin hawks his expertise on hackforums.net in the latest edition of his e-book, Spreading Guide v7.0, which costs £15 (around Rs 1,500). Readers are told they can pick up to 3,000 slaves a day. And if this handholding isnt enough, one can simply buy slaves from more successful ratters for up to $50 a piece. The auction market for slaves has been good and consistent. The US slaves come cheap as there are too many of them. Everyones got the US covered, says Sachin, who narrated the Suzanne story. But do not try this at home. Cyber law expert Pavan Duggal says: Hackers using rats to invade computers and spy on a victim through webcams and microphones is a breach of privacy. Such activities constitute the offence of hacking and computer-related offences under the Information Technology Act, 2000. Prashant Mali, also a cyber-law expert, says the offence is punishable with three years imprisonment or a fine of Rs 5 lakh or both. It is cognizable: the police can arrest without warrant. Online forums that post and host information pertaining to ratting often cross the line into illegality. However, the Act is silent on rat software. But, Duggal says, if a piece of software contains banned parameters, it would be illegal. Funnily, rats were originally intended for industrial purposes such as controlling a system or monitoring a place through a webcam from afar. A number of times, software is made keeping in mind legitimate purposes. However, it is the illegal usage the law seeks to penalise, says Duggal. How does one protect against becoming a slave to ratters? Chopra of Norton by Symantec says, Keep antivirus definitions, operating systems, and software up-to-date. Avoid opening emails from unknown senders and clicking on suspicious attachments and links. Also, be suspicious of unexpected webcam activity. Use a piece of tape to cover it when not in use. Jain says, All prominent antivirus software can easily remove rats. But beware a friends pen drive. Laptops and desktops are not the only targets: smartphones with cameras and microphones are vulnerable too. They need to be treated for viruses, malware and rats. Read Full story at business-standard/article/beyond-business/ratters-on-the-prowl-114031401145_1.html
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 03:34:27 +0000
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