Website allows you to hire 'professional' hackers anonymously

Hacker's List, is a new website that offers to connect people and "professional" hackers for hire, with the belief that just about everyone, at one point or another, needs to hack into something.

The website — which shows listings as far back as November, when it launched — includes more than 400 posts from users seeking hackers. There are around 70 hacker profiles displayed on the site, but many of them don't appear to be active.

"Hiring a hacker shouldn't be a difficult process, we believe that finding a trustworthy professional hacker for hire should be a worry free and painless experience," reads the website.

Hacking is no longer considered a task only reserved for high-stakes situations, like international espionage. Sure, the cyberattack against Sony Pictures was sophisticated, but sometimes people want hackers' help for very mundane things.

If someone suspects a spouse is cheating, a user could post an anonymous listing on Hacker's List, name a price and the right person could gain access to a significant other's social media accounts.

There are listings for a variety of activities, which are called "projects" on the website, from breaking into iPhones to tampering with academic grades.

Once a user posts a job, hackers will respond with ideas for how to accomplish the task. After that, the person doing the hiring picks a hacker, based on price, availability. When pricing is agreed upon, the first payment is made. (Though Hacker's List claims it holds all payments until the project is complete.)

Bids for hackers can range from low prices (say, $1) to thousands. One listing, for example, wants hackers to remove content and images from search engines. The buyers is willing to pay as much as $4,000 for the job. Using this website, of course, doesn't mean that a hacker will automatically take on the job — many of the posts don't have any bids at all.

Data breaches are seemingly more common than ever before. The hackers freelancing for the listing service will have varying skill levels, but, as Mashable's Christina Warren put it, everyone should have the expectation that "our privacy and security are finite and will probably be breached."

To help keep sites secure, use password managers and generators — like LastPass — as well as two-factor authentication, which requires a password and a uniquely generated code, to protect email accounts and computer systems. The better the security, the more difficult it is to hack.

Hiring hackers online isn't new, and services sometimes have surprising legitimacy. One example: NeighborHoodHacker.com, which has a phone number and live-chat receptionist. There's even a dedicated website for reviewing them. If something goes awry, the users can consult one of Hacker's List's "dispute specialists."

Of course, how legal all of this is remains entirely questionable. The site's terms and conditions forbid "use the Service for any illegal purposes," but breaking into someone's personal email, for one, is almost never OK, lawfully speaking.

The founders of the website are still too afraid to go public, according to The New York Times. The report said the founders were advised by legal counsel about how to structure the website to avoid liability for any wrongdoing by people either seeking to hire a hacker or by hackers agreeing to do a job. The site is registered in New Zealand.