Exploring the Russian Hacker Forum Exploit.in

Exploit.in is one of the biggest Russian hacker forums. In this blog, we dive into what Exploit.in is and why it may be a goldmine for those stealing your data.

Intro

You may think you’re safe. In fact, you’re not — with hackers waiting for your next mistake at every corner, your data is far from safe either. Your data is being accessed, abused, twisted, and sold on hacker forums — some of those forums exist on the dark web, but in fact, most are accessible over the clear web, too. Exploit.in is one of such forums — the Exploit.in forum is said to be Russian in origin, but the Exploit.in database is accessible over the clear web and for those well-versed in slavic languages like Russian or Ukrainian, it can be a gold mine when figuring out the threats to the well-being of your data.

What is Exploit.in?

Exploit.in is said to be one of the most popular Russian-speaking hacking forums. It’s not known just precisely how many of the users there are based in Russia (and there’s a good bet that there are more than a few residing outside of the Russian Federation), but only a part of Exploit.in — the Exploit.in forum — has an English translation, so if you’re a security researcher and want to see what’s happening in the Exploit.in database but don’t want to use Google Translate, its high time to learn some Russian.

At a high level, the front page of Exploit.in looks like this:

The front page of Exploit.in is already mentioning “Brute Ratel Hacked: Hackers Have Obtained Access to a Powerful Tool of Cyberwarfare” by the user “News Support” giving you a small taste of what you can expect on the forum.

Another thread mentions the recent Twilio hack saying “Twilio: Hackers Have Gained Access to 33 Million of Authy Users”, Some other recent blogs are quick to state stat “Security won’t help you: 1.5 million servers of Exim are affected by a critical security flaw”, Exploit.in discusses CVE exploits saying that OpenSSH is being attacked again (presumably referring to the fact that there’s a CVE vulnerability found in OpenSSH), etc.

At a high level, the main page of Exploit.in is seemingly dedicated to legitimate cybersecurity news — but once users reach the main Exploit.in database — the Exploit.in forum — things get much more interesting…

The Exploit.in Database — From Carding and TOR to File Storage

The heart of Exploit.in is the forum — the forum is supposedly closed off to the public (to access the forum of Exploit.in, one needs to register), and we wouldn’t exactly recommend doing it because you could get on the radar of law enforcement, but anyway, there are thousands of people with accounts on Exploit.in and some details did leak out. The Exploit.in database — its forum — contains many different things including, but not limited to:

• Information on Exploit.in itself
• Tutorials on security, hacking, and malware
• Methods of hacking and protection of wireless networks such as wardriving and bluejacking
• Methods to work with messengers and social networks
• Social engineering
• Tutorials on anonymity and privacy
• Tutorials on cryptography, encryption, steganography, and similar things
• Hacking Tools
• Money making systems
• Articles and videos to prevent hacking
• Tutorials on 0day vulnerabilities
• Software discussions
• Database leaks
• Source code of various malware appliances
• Tutorials on blackhat and whitehat SEO
• Hardware and software – gadgets, operating systems, and the software within
• Cryptocurrency, its mining, trading, and discussion on coins including BTC and altcoins
• Business
• Legal issues, law, and law enforcement
• Buying/selling malware, FTP access, shell scripts, leaked databases, selling access to servers, traffic, etc.
• Job advertisements
• Auctions
• A place for blacklisted users to discuss the reasons they’ve been blacklisted
• A place only accessible to paid subscribers
• Miscellaneous discussion including games, music, movies, and other things

The forum of Exploit.in is said to have millions of threads across the categories depicted above. These threads within the forum of Exploit.in are known to facilitate discussion between hackers of various hats: white-hat hackers and security researchers access Exploit.in to learn and search for the secrets of black-hat hackers, while nefarious parties — the black-hat hackers — would most likely be interested in various methods of exploitation, database leaks, 0day vulnerabilities, and so on.

According to the YouTube channel Josh Hammond, the Exploit.in forum has more than 60,000 members, over 200,000 topics on various things related to the categories shown above, and over a million of total posts on the hacking forum. Exploit.in also has a “who’s online” section depicting the currently active members on the forum, and one of the members has even titled himself “LockBit”…

Moving further, we can see that the heart of Exploit.in — the so-called Exploit.in database — also has rules that users must adhere to in order to be welcome on Exploit.in: it seems like behaving is a necessity even in hacker forums…

Aside from rules within Exploit.in, much of the content within the forum seems to stem from questionable activity at most — taking a quick look into some of the content shared across the forum only confirms and corroborates this belief:

From botnets to leaked database sales… Yup, users of the forum of Exploit.in are certainly up to no good. Below, you can see a user of Exploit.in supposedly buying a Local Privilege Escalation (LPE) exploit for Windows architecture:

And that’s not even the end of it! These hacking forums are something else altogether.

The Role of BreachDirectory

With hacking forums like Exploit.in ruling the hacking world, it’s high time to protect yourself from the threats posed by them, too. One of the primary ways to protect yourself from identity theft, credential stuffing, and other types of attacks is by using data breach search engines like BreachDirectory — both the data breach search engine and the BreachDirectory API will provide you with all of the necessary information enabling you to make better decisions to protect yourself in the future.

The BreachDirectory data breach search engine is absolutely free to use — give it a spin today and share it with your friends to help them protect themselves from identity theft and other types of attacks.

Summary

Russian hacking forums like Exploit.in provide us with a rare opportunity to peek into the dark underworld of black-hat hackers. It’s interesting to see that hacker forums are not only sharing information related to hacking to begin with: from sales of leaked databases, cryptocurrency discussion and tutorials on 0day vulnerabilities to discussion about prominent real-life issues, the content on Exploit.in spans a variety of pressing and worrying issues both for now and in the future.

We’re unsure what kind of future awaits the users of Exploit.in, but we’re strongly recommending you avoid visiting or registering on this forum because you may appear on the radar of law enforcement agencies if you do.

We hope that you’ve found this blog informational and useful and that you will follow us on X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and Facebook for more news — come back to the BreachDirectory blog to read some more of our blogs later on, and until next time.

Exploit.in — Frequently Asked Questions

What is Exploit.in?

Exploit.in is one of the most prominent Russian-speaking hacking forums on the planet. The forum is said to have hundreds of thousands of members and its topics facilitate everything from selling of leaked data breaches to pressing real-life issues and even the law.

Should I Visit or Register on Exploit.in?

We advise against registering on this hacking forum — you may land on the radar of law enforcement if you do.

How Does BreachDirectory Help Me Protect My Data?

Data breach search engines like BreachDirectory are built to help you protect your most precious data and assets on the web. By scanning through hundreds of publicly available data breaches, it enables you to quickly assess and identify your likelihood of being exposed in a data breach and take appropriate action if necessary.

Is there an Exploit.in Combolist?

Yes — such a thing as an Exploit.in combolist does exist, however, we’re unsure of its origin just yet. It may be that the Exploit.in combolist and the Exploit.in database were derived from the Exploit.in forum, but we can’t say for certain as of yet. Follow our blog to always stay updated with cybersecurity news.