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U.S. officials allege that Karim Baratov was a “hacker for hire.” Whenever he was successful at his job, he was paid a bounty.

Internet experts suggest there are many more “hackers” like him out there, so protecting your personal information is important.

It took hacking expert Ken Owen only a few clicks to find a site recruiting internet hackers. According to Owen, “These are the sorts of things as you develop a set of skills and reputation in that community of the sort of opportunities that present themselves become more interesting.”

Security experts say there is so much information on-line now, a person with the right skills can find out a lot about you.

Christian Leuprecht who is a security expert says, “You can find well known individuals, corporations conducting business. You can exfiltrate credit card numbers, gift card numbers, corporate secrets.”

And anything you put out on social media isn’t as private as you thought. According to Leuprecht, “If you interact on-line you have to understand that everything you do on-line may one day become public.”

Ken Owen says honesty isn’t the best policy when creating an on-line profile.

Everytime you announce on Facebook when you’re going on vacation or post countless pictures of your kids and pets on Instagram, you’re just making it easier for criminals.

Owen says, “These guys are looking to monetize your information and if they can’t put it together quickly they move on to someone else.”

Some other things you can do to keep your information safe is to use multiple email accounts, and change up your passwords, simple things like that will make your information harder to steal..

As for Karim Baratov, experts say he wasn’t necessarily really smart, just passionate about technology.