Or they call company employees and pose as co-employees. Similarly, hackers can set up a bogus online site to collect credit card numbers, said hacker Mark Choi. Others, like Hawk, get numbers by exploiting the security vulnerabilities that just about all Web sites have. Thousands of e-commerce sites conduct the majority of their business by credit card purchase. Many of these sites, especially new ones without much staff or money, keep credit card numbers on their server without any encryption protection.
Most hackers can cut through a Web site's server like a knife through butter.
Hawk would not talk about how he hacks into computer systems, but Web experts know how hackers go about their business. Usually, Scoleri said, a hacker will send a company employee an innocuous e-mail with an attachment. If the hacker is smart, he will be able to fool the employee into opening the attachment by, for example, making the subject of the e-mail about the presidential election or something else timely or humorous. The attachment is a actually program that plugs into the company's server. Once it is opened, the hacker can snoop around the server and copy anything he wants, if it's not encrypted.