Top Hacking Tools Site Restricts Access to Hacker Programs & Tools
Citing a desire to thwart "script kiddies" and security companies, a popular site that provides free hacking tools has closed its doors to the general public. Hack.co.za will no longer allow all visitors to download its collection of exploits, according to its operator, a South African who uses the nickname Gov-Boi.
"I am annoyed with security companies using my archives for their own personal profits ... I am tired of so-called 'penetration testers' who barely know how to use nmap using my (free, non-profit) archive to increase their profits. i am tired of catering for Web page-defacers," wrote Gov-Boi, in a posting at the site today.
Top Hacking Tools Site Restricts Access
By Brian McWilliams, Newsbytes
In an e-mail interview with Newsbytes, Gov-Boi declined to name which security companies have relied on his archives.
Hack.co.za, which was first launched in 1998 as an archive of defacements of South African sites, assembled a large repository of programs written by hackers throughout the world. Over 3,000 tools were freely available for exploiting security vulnerabilities in all the major operating systems and many popular applications, according to Gov-Boi.
A copy of the site's home page that was cached by the Google search engine indicates that Hack.co.za had recorded 147,354 visits and 266,373 downloads as of August 13.
Going forward, the site will cater exclusively to "code writers," according to Gov-Boi, who intends to implement a password-based system to allow access only to people who send him "useful, unpublished code."
"The smart will get smarter, the newbies will struggle. If everyone followed suit, script kiddies would become a dying breed," he wrote.
Numerous mirrors of the previous site, which is registered to Approach Technology, are still available on the Internet.
