SI as a method of attacking Skype
The very concept that you can hack something without a single line of code makes hacking a system interesting and unique. Social engineering is not just a science. There is no single universal hacking scheme in this way. In each case, the hacker develops his own way to achieve a specific result.
Attacking Skype
At the time of 2013, Skype was one of the most popular instant messengers. At that time, Skype was already part of Microsoft. Bugs and vulnerabilities were found almost every day. Back then, many bugs were already covered, for example, with recovery using a password token, incorrect filtering, etc. But zero-day errors still existed. One of the biggest flaws was in the Skype security service. Strange as it may sound, but the support service, which was supposed to protect the accounts, itself gave the hacker access to them. This can hardly be called a bug or an error, but the operation of the system is determined by its entire integrity. And if some function of the program does not work correctly, it can lead to a fatal outcome. This example is based on real events and demonstrates the beauty of social engineering.
If you do not remember your password, Skype will kindly send you a code to restore it to your mail. But we don't know the victim's email. And in general, we know almost nothing about the victim. The Skype website had a form to apply to recover a lost account. This required a few things:
Knowing all these data, you can access your account. By submitting this application to Skype support, within 24 hours you will receive a notification of a positive or negative decision by e-mail. If all the data is correct, then the victim's account is linked to your mail, and you can recover the password on the site within a minute. It would seem that nothing complicated.
Step 1. Information gathering
At the first stage, the victim is analyzed and the necessary data is collected. By adding the victim to our contact list, we can see the date of birth and country, if the user has not hidden them. But in 90% of cases they are publicly available. If they are hidden, then you can try to “break through” the victim by login through Internet search engines. Find the victim on social networks or other sites where you can find out the date of birth. Many people often leave their contacts on forums or other Internet sites. Such data is easily beaten in the search. Sometimes you can connect "dorks" with which to optimize the search. You should always try to get the most out of search engines, not paying attention only to the first links, because they are relevant, but only according to the search engine.
But in general, each "standard" user tries to set his country of residence, doing everything "by default" and hiding nothing.
Finding out the date of the last entry is not a problem if the victim is in your contact list, and we can see her status. Skype doesn't show when you were last online. But you can send the file to the victim. Wait a few days and if the file is not sent, then the user has not yet logged into the account. In this case, you can indicate in the application - "more than 2 days ago." But with the date of account creation is more complicated, but, as a rule, those. support is not particularly demanding on this item and we can only indicate the approximate month and year. Here we are helped by collecting information about the victim - her activities play an important role in this case.
It is already more difficult to break through three friends from the victim list. As a rule, I did not use this and simply added friends from three different accounts to the victim. It is very important that these are not new accounts registered at the same time.
The last and most interesting step was to break through the mail associated with the victim's account. Until 2013, there was an interesting “feature” on facebook, which was nevertheless removed due to a massive hacking of accounts, or, perhaps, due to the disclosure of confidential information about a person. The idea was simple: facebook allows you to search for friends from various instant messengers and other social networks. We create an account on facebook, go to the "add friends" tab, select via skype, enter your username and password, and facebook imports all contacts from your skype account to the site, while opposite each contact we see his mail.
This was necessary so that Facebook could find your friends on the social network using this mail. Soon Skype did close the email transmission. Sometimes, at this step, it was already possible to stop and hack the victim's Skype. We will return to this a little later.
Step 2. Application
Before submitting the application, it was very important to clarify one point. If the victim is in England, and you are trying to apply through the IP, say, of Italy, then the Skype administration will have very big doubts and 99% will refuse you. Therefore, it was necessary to set up a proxy server for the country of the victim.
Having indicated all the data we have collected, it is imperative to describe the history of the loss of access to “your” account. On behalf of the victim, we write something like this:
"Hello. I have been on vacation for the last month. After returning home, I was unable to log into my account. I'm not sure that I remember my password exactly, but I suspect that scammers could get my data, because I can't enter my mail either. Please help me."
After the formation and sending of the application, within 24 hours you will receive a response to the new mail that you indicated in the application. If the support service approves it, then the victim's account will be linked to this very mail, and you can go to the Skype website and reset the password. In my case, everything was simple. I hacked a certain category of people who were almost always online, always added you to their contact list and all personal data was open - date of birth and country.
Alternative way to hack skype
This method is based on a non-existent email linked to the victim's skype. Sometimes, when registering an account on a site, people often write a set of characters instead of real mail. Because they just don’t want to waste time, or they don’t remember their mail, or they don’t want to confirm their account.
As mentioned earlier, facebook allows you to determine the mail associated with the victim's skype. Having recognized it, we may see mail of this kind “[email protected]” or “[email protected]”. In the first case, we will go to gmail.com and try to register a new mail with the name "fjdfdji38h9h9id". If everything works out, then we can just reset the password to this mail. Account hacked. In the second case, the site with the name "jhjfhgfohg.com" does not exist at all. We create a host, bind this domain name to it, raise the mail service and create mail there with the name "fdjhfdh39h". Thus, we have the mail “[email protected]”, to which we can also send the Skype password.
Hacking Skype using "Fruit"
After many successful hacking attempts, those. support nevertheless noticed a huge influx of requests for restoration. They tightened the requirements and now for a successful hack you need to know the victim's data 100%. In addition, the method of punching mail on Facebook no longer worked.
A social engineer never gets hung up on hacking with one method.
It develops, exploring all possible ways, because in any smallest detail a fatal error can be hidden. And so it was. The Qiwi payment system at that time was not very secure, so it still endured a series of attacks. But how to connect Qiwi and Skype, you think and discard this idea. Just not a social engineer.
Exploring the Skype password recovery form, you can stumble upon an interesting item. Skype offers the ability to make calls worldwide using an internal balance. It can be replenished through most payment systems, including a Visa card. If you have ever replenished your Skype balance, then you can specify this data in the application and Skype support will be more than enough to identify you as the owner of the account. Very interesting… Qiwi is convenient because it integrates many services, including Skype. By registering in Qiwi by phone number, you are assigned a virtual card with a number, issue date and pin code. And when making a payment through qiwi, you formally pay with a card. The bottom line is that Qiwi allows you to replenish the balance of your Skype account, while you just need to know the Skype login.
Eureka!
We enter the victim's login in Qiwi and replenish her balance with a couple of dollars. We look at the payment history in qiwi and select our check. We need the transfer number, date and amount. We indicate this data in the application for the restoration of Skype. We write a similar text:
“Hello, I forgot my password, and my mail was blocked, so there is no way to reset the password. I ask you to link my account to a new mail. I am attaching data on replenishing my balance with a card. ”
It is important not to indicate in the application that we replenished the balance through Qiwi, but to create a story that we used our personal card.
For Skype, this moment was very important for identification, so they simply turned a blind eye to all other points and gave you access.
The very concept that you can hack something without a single line of code makes hacking a system interesting and unique. Social engineering is not just a science. There is no single universal hacking scheme in this way. In each case, the hacker develops his own way to achieve a specific result.
Attacking Skype
At the time of 2013, Skype was one of the most popular instant messengers. At that time, Skype was already part of Microsoft. Bugs and vulnerabilities were found almost every day. Back then, many bugs were already covered, for example, with recovery using a password token, incorrect filtering, etc. But zero-day errors still existed. One of the biggest flaws was in the Skype security service. Strange as it may sound, but the support service, which was supposed to protect the accounts, itself gave the hacker access to them. This can hardly be called a bug or an error, but the operation of the system is determined by its entire integrity. And if some function of the program does not work correctly, it can lead to a fatal outcome. This example is based on real events and demonstrates the beauty of social engineering.
If you do not remember your password, Skype will kindly send you a code to restore it to your mail. But we don't know the victim's email. And in general, we know almost nothing about the victim. The Skype website had a form to apply to recover a lost account. This required a few things:
Knowing all these data, you can access your account. By submitting this application to Skype support, within 24 hours you will receive a notification of a positive or negative decision by e-mail. If all the data is correct, then the victim's account is linked to your mail, and you can recover the password on the site within a minute. It would seem that nothing complicated.
Step 1. Information gathering
At the first stage, the victim is analyzed and the necessary data is collected. By adding the victim to our contact list, we can see the date of birth and country, if the user has not hidden them. But in 90% of cases they are publicly available. If they are hidden, then you can try to “break through” the victim by login through Internet search engines. Find the victim on social networks or other sites where you can find out the date of birth. Many people often leave their contacts on forums or other Internet sites. Such data is easily beaten in the search. Sometimes you can connect "dorks" with which to optimize the search. You should always try to get the most out of search engines, not paying attention only to the first links, because they are relevant, but only according to the search engine.
But in general, each "standard" user tries to set his country of residence, doing everything "by default" and hiding nothing.
Finding out the date of the last entry is not a problem if the victim is in your contact list, and we can see her status. Skype doesn't show when you were last online. But you can send the file to the victim. Wait a few days and if the file is not sent, then the user has not yet logged into the account. In this case, you can indicate in the application - "more than 2 days ago." But with the date of account creation is more complicated, but, as a rule, those. support is not particularly demanding on this item and we can only indicate the approximate month and year. Here we are helped by collecting information about the victim - her activities play an important role in this case.
It is already more difficult to break through three friends from the victim list. As a rule, I did not use this and simply added friends from three different accounts to the victim. It is very important that these are not new accounts registered at the same time.
The last and most interesting step was to break through the mail associated with the victim's account. Until 2013, there was an interesting “feature” on facebook, which was nevertheless removed due to a massive hacking of accounts, or, perhaps, due to the disclosure of confidential information about a person. The idea was simple: facebook allows you to search for friends from various instant messengers and other social networks. We create an account on facebook, go to the "add friends" tab, select via skype, enter your username and password, and facebook imports all contacts from your skype account to the site, while opposite each contact we see his mail.
This was necessary so that Facebook could find your friends on the social network using this mail. Soon Skype did close the email transmission. Sometimes, at this step, it was already possible to stop and hack the victim's Skype. We will return to this a little later.
Step 2. Application
Before submitting the application, it was very important to clarify one point. If the victim is in England, and you are trying to apply through the IP, say, of Italy, then the Skype administration will have very big doubts and 99% will refuse you. Therefore, it was necessary to set up a proxy server for the country of the victim.
Having indicated all the data we have collected, it is imperative to describe the history of the loss of access to “your” account. On behalf of the victim, we write something like this:
"Hello. I have been on vacation for the last month. After returning home, I was unable to log into my account. I'm not sure that I remember my password exactly, but I suspect that scammers could get my data, because I can't enter my mail either. Please help me."
After the formation and sending of the application, within 24 hours you will receive a response to the new mail that you indicated in the application. If the support service approves it, then the victim's account will be linked to this very mail, and you can go to the Skype website and reset the password. In my case, everything was simple. I hacked a certain category of people who were almost always online, always added you to their contact list and all personal data was open - date of birth and country.
Alternative way to hack skype
This method is based on a non-existent email linked to the victim's skype. Sometimes, when registering an account on a site, people often write a set of characters instead of real mail. Because they just don’t want to waste time, or they don’t remember their mail, or they don’t want to confirm their account.
As mentioned earlier, facebook allows you to determine the mail associated with the victim's skype. Having recognized it, we may see mail of this kind “[email protected]” or “[email protected]”. In the first case, we will go to gmail.com and try to register a new mail with the name "fjdfdji38h9h9id". If everything works out, then we can just reset the password to this mail. Account hacked. In the second case, the site with the name "jhjfhgfohg.com" does not exist at all. We create a host, bind this domain name to it, raise the mail service and create mail there with the name "fdjhfdh39h". Thus, we have the mail “[email protected]”, to which we can also send the Skype password.
Hacking Skype using "Fruit"
After many successful hacking attempts, those. support nevertheless noticed a huge influx of requests for restoration. They tightened the requirements and now for a successful hack you need to know the victim's data 100%. In addition, the method of punching mail on Facebook no longer worked.
A social engineer never gets hung up on hacking with one method.
It develops, exploring all possible ways, because in any smallest detail a fatal error can be hidden. And so it was. The Qiwi payment system at that time was not very secure, so it still endured a series of attacks. But how to connect Qiwi and Skype, you think and discard this idea. Just not a social engineer.
Exploring the Skype password recovery form, you can stumble upon an interesting item. Skype offers the ability to make calls worldwide using an internal balance. It can be replenished through most payment systems, including a Visa card. If you have ever replenished your Skype balance, then you can specify this data in the application and Skype support will be more than enough to identify you as the owner of the account. Very interesting… Qiwi is convenient because it integrates many services, including Skype. By registering in Qiwi by phone number, you are assigned a virtual card with a number, issue date and pin code. And when making a payment through qiwi, you formally pay with a card. The bottom line is that Qiwi allows you to replenish the balance of your Skype account, while you just need to know the Skype login.
Eureka!
We enter the victim's login in Qiwi and replenish her balance with a couple of dollars. We look at the payment history in qiwi and select our check. We need the transfer number, date and amount. We indicate this data in the application for the restoration of Skype. We write a similar text:
“Hello, I forgot my password, and my mail was blocked, so there is no way to reset the password. I ask you to link my account to a new mail. I am attaching data on replenishing my balance with a card. ”
It is important not to indicate in the application that we replenished the balance through Qiwi, but to create a story that we used our personal card.
For Skype, this moment was very important for identification, so they simply turned a blind eye to all other points and gave you access.