This is from 2006 or early 2007, so not everything is going to be relevant now.
- You have valuable information, like industrial/military secrets, or maybe serious Harry Potter spoilers.
- Someone close to you is nosy and wants to go through your private stuff.
- Someone has a grudge on you and wants to dig up dirt, even if there isn't actually any.
- Your own information isn't very interesting, but there's a chance that someone close to you has interesting information that you have access to. (Think: JK Rowling's literary agent, George Lucas's copy-editor, Donald Trump's secretary, someone on
brad's friendslist.)
- You're in possession of some information you didn't realize was hot.
- They couldn't care less about your personal info, but from your account they can get inside dirt on the technical details of the operation. (Most common in corporate/government settings.)
- Woo, an account got set up by a legit user, so they may not notice for a few hours when 10 of my buddies and I start using your account to plaster goatse all over LJ.
- You may not have anything interesting stored, but that person who trusts you won't suspect a thing if I use your account to ask them something they'd never tell me.
- You're rich, and they can hax your money.
- You're not rich, but they can drain your account just as well, and it's a little less well-guarded.
- You're not rich and have no money, but a credit card in your name spends better than one in theirs.
- They really hate you and want to screw you over by committing assorted fraud in your name.
- This account of yours has no important stuff ... except you have it set up as the secondary, in case of lockout, account on those things that are important.
- It was there; they were bored.
- They have no interest in your personal details, but your machine is unguarded and will make a great minion in a zombie botnet that is trying to take over the world, or at least take down microsoft.com for 3 seconds.
Types of Hack Attacks:
- Guess the password cold
- Guess the password based on their knowledge of you
- Watch the keystrokes, guess the password
- Guess the password based on general most common used words
- Guess the password based on nonspecific interests
- Use a program that runs words through the password
- Use a program that runs letter combos at your password.
- Find where you have your password written down