Strictly speaking, “hacking” is a general term denoting the activities of the vast majority of malicious objects, as well as cyber attacks on the computers of individuals, enterprises and government agencies. In addition to social engineering and the spread of malicious advertising, commonly used hacking methods include:
Botnets
Browser hijackers
DDoS attacks
Ransomware programs
Rootkits
Trojan programs
Viruses
Network worms

Hacking as a phenomenon has gone from teenage fun to a multibillion-dollar business with a developed criminal infrastructure that allows you to develop hacking tools to order and sell them to ambitious thieves who are not deprived of money, but have less technical skills (such attackers are pejoratively called “scriptkiddy” because they use someone else’s program code to attack, without understanding the mechanism of its action).

Just one example of such tools is the ransomware as a Service (RaaS).

So, Windows users often become the target of a widespread attack by attackers allegedly offering remote access to IT systems for just $ 10 through a hacker store located in the Dark Web – the “dark” segment of the Internet, which allows them to steal information, disrupt systems, implement ransomware and commit other criminal acts. In addition, such stores sell special versions of operating systems – from Windows XP to Windows 10. Attackers even give out tips on how to use secret accounts to remain unnoticed.