Hack Ex 2 Guide

Getting Started

Your first few minutes in Hack Ex 2. Follow these steps to go from noob to menace.

What You Start With

Starting Software

Your First Hack

1. Scan for a target. Go to the Scan page and hit "Scan Random." The scanner pulls up to 10 targets close to your level, widening the level range as needed until it fills the list. Look for someone with a low firewall level.
2. Bypass their firewall. Tap a target and hit "Bypass." This starts a Firewall Bypass process that runs in real time. Higher-level firewalls take longer to break through.
3. Crack their password. Once the firewall is down, start a Password Crack process. When it completes, you have full access to their hot wallet.
4. Steal their crypto. Open the victim's Wallet tab and transfer crypto to your own wallet.
5. Download software or upload viruses. While you have access, download their software to unlock with your Keygen later, or upload a Spam virus for passive crypto income. You can also deploy a Rootkit to weaken their defenses for you and your crew.
6. Stash your loot. Go to your Wallet and transfer crypto from your hot wallet (stealable) to cold storage (safe). Your cold storage limit grows as you level up.

Software & Apps

Your software is your loadout. Offensive tools let you attack, defensive tools protect you, and utility tools give you an edge.

Defensive Software

These protect your device from attackers. Defensive software gets a 15% price upgrade discount in the Store.

Firewall

Defense

Your first line of defense. Higher levels increase bypass duration and reduce attacker success rate. Upgrading invalidates all current bypass/crack processes and grants a 4-hour protection window.

Password Encryptor

Defense

Encrypts your password. Higher levels make cracking harder and slower. Upgrading invalidates all existing cracked passwords against you.

Antivirus

Defense

Scans your device and removes viruses. Higher AV levels improve removal chance. Scan speed depends on your device level. Restores 90% of reputation lost from viruses.

Proxy

Defense

Masks your IP address when activated. Higher levels mask more of your IP. At level 20+, you become invisible to scans entirely. Must be manually activated for a cost.

Trace

Defense

Counter-measure against proxy users. When someone hacks you through a proxy, Trace attempts to reveal their real IP. Higher levels improve unmask chance.

Offensive Software

These are your weapons. Use them to break into devices, steal crypto, and wreck other players.

Bypasser

Offense

Breaks through firewalls. Higher levels increase success rate and reduce bypass time. Your primary offensive tool — keep this upgraded.

Password Cracker

Offense

Cracks encrypted passwords. After bypassing a firewall, this is your next step. Higher levels improve success rate and reduce crack duration.

Viruses

Deployable malware you install on victim devices. See the Viruses section for full details.

Spam

Virus

Generates passive crypto income from the victim’s device, accruing continuously at an hourly rate. Your primary money-maker. Build a botnet to scale up.

Siphon

Virus

Skims a percentage of every crypto entering the victim’s hot wallet — theft, incoming transfers, spam collection, mission and login rewards. Stacks with spam.

Rootkit

Virus

Weakens the victim's defenses for you and your entire crew. Reduces effective defense by up to 3 levels. Strategic tool for coordinated attacks.

Utility Software

Keygen

Utility

Generate license keys for downloaded software at a fraction of the store price. See the Keygen section for details.

Notepad

Utility

Your personal log. Keep notes, track targets, or leave messages for anyone who hacks you. One-time purchase (10,000 Crypto).

Message Encryptor

Utility

Encrypts your crew chat messages. One-time purchase (15,000 Crypto). Required in some crews that enforce encryption.

Software Pricing

All software upgrades cost crypto. Prices increase as you level up — each successive upgrade costs more than the last. Defensive software gets a 15% upgrade discount compared to offensive equivalents. A few utility programs (Notepad, Message Encryptor) are flat one-time purchases with no levels.

Viruses

Viruses are deployable malware you upload to victim devices after cracking their password. You can install up to 2 of the 3 virus types on any one victim — pick your loadout per target. A victim can still be infected by many attackers at once, so every extra body on the map is more pressure on their antivirus. Viruses damage the victim’s reputation and give you passive benefits.

Virus Types

Spam Virus

Passive Income

Generates a steady stream of crypto from the victim’s device, accruing continuously at an hourly rate. Income depends on your spam level and the victim’s player level — targeting higher-level players earns a bonus; targeting lower-level players earns less. Income gradually decays the longer a spam sits on the same victim, so active hackers with fresh deployments out-earn set-and-forget players.

You can only run so many spam deployments at once. The default slot count is tiny — to scale up into serious passive income you need a botnet, a hardware tier that multiplies how many simultaneous spam viruses you can maintain across victims. Higher botnet tiers unlock dramatically more slots (up to 64 at the top tier).

See Spam Economy for earning rates and decay curves, and Botnet Tiers for slot counts and scaling fees.

Siphon Virus

Hot Wallet Skim

Skims a percentage of every crypto amount that lands in the victim’s hot wallet — incoming transfers, theft proceeds, spam collection, mission/ad/login-streak rewards.

Quantity is king. A single siphon is a trickle — at level 1 it skims 1% of each incoming amount. Deployed at scale across dozens of victims, those tiny cuts compound into a serious income stream. Combined siphon rates from multiple attackers on any one victim are capped at 30%.

What bypasses siphon: anything that goes directly to cold storage never passes through the hot wallet, so it’s never skimmed. That includes subscription daily Crypto (Hacker Pass / Elite Pass dailies), Crypto Stash purchases from the Black Market, and manual transfers the victim sends from hot to cold. Outbound purchases (Store upgrades, OC packs, proxy activations) also don’t trigger siphon — that crypto leaves the hot wallet.

No decay. Unlike spam, siphons earn at full rate forever. Once deployed they work silently in the background until the victim’s antivirus removes them. Stacks well alongside spam on the same target.

Rootkit Virus

Defense Debuff

Weakens the victim's firewall and password encryptor for you and your entire crew. The debuff grows stronger as rootkit level increases, up to a cap of 3 effective defense levels removed. Strategic for coordinated crew raids.

Virus Reputation Impact

Getting a virus installed on your device costs reputation. Higher-level viruses deal more reputation damage, and some of that damage is permanent. Running an Antivirus scan restores most of the lost rep, but a small portion is permanently scarred. There's a daily cap on how much rep you can lose.

Virus Performance Penalty

Each active virus on your device (spam, rootkit, or siphon) cuts your device and network performance by 1%. The slowdown caps at 40% (floor of 60% performance), so 40+ simultaneous infections is the worst case — but that’s still a crippling tax on every process you run: bypasses, cracks, downloads, uploads, and even your own antivirus scans. Keep your antivirus current.

Consumables

Single-use items that can save you in a pinch or give you a shortcut through defenses. Obtained in the Black Market (rotating inventory), and subscription weekly drops.

IP Scrambler

Changes your IP address. Cancels ALL pending processes against you (bypass, crack, download, upload) and invalidates all bypassed firewall records. A panic button.

System Purge

Removes all viruses from your device and restores most of your lost reputation. The nuclear option for a heavily infected system.

EMP Pulse

Cancels all pending processes against you AND blocks new ones for 1 hour. Unlike IP Scrambler, doesn't change your IP — but gives you a window of total protection.

2hr cooldown

Wallet Shield

Blocks manual crypto theft for 24 hours. Sleep easy knowing attackers can’t empty your hot wallet. Note: siphon viruses still trickle earnings through the shield.

48hr cooldown

Backdoor

Instantly bypasses a firewall — no process needed. Higher-level firewalls have an increasing chance to block it.

Exploit Kit

Instantly cracks a password — no process needed. Higher-level encryptors have an increasing chance to block it.

Consumable Hardening

Defensive software can passively block consumables. This is called hardening — it kicks in at software level 3 and scales with each additional level.

Wallet & Crypto

Crypto is the in-game currency you earn through hacking, spam, missions, and more. It's used to buy upgrades in the Store. Manage your wallet carefully — other players can steal from your hot wallet.

Hot Wallet vs Cold Storage

Cold Storage Limit

You start at Level 1 with a cold storage limit of 3,000 Crypto. Every level-up from Level 2 onward adds a chunk to your cap, and the growth accelerates with level so late-game progression unlocks dramatically more storage:

Network Gas Fee

Like real blockchain networks, every crypto transfer in Hack Ex 2 incurs a gas fee. A portion of all stolen crypto is captured by the network to process the transaction — the victim loses the full amount, and you keep 90% of it. This fee keeps the in-game economy healthy by acting as a deflationary economy sink.

Wallet Shield

Activating a Wallet Shield blocks manual crypto theft from your hot wallet for 24 hours. Siphon viruses still earn through the shield — if you’re infected, scan and remove them. After the shield expires there’s a 48-hour cooldown before you can use another.

Crypto Exchange (Crypto → Credits)

From the Wallet page you can convert Crypto into premium Credits at a 250:1 rate. Minimum exchange is 5 Credits (1,250 Crypto). You’re capped at 750 Credits per calendar month (resets 1st UTC) so F2P players have a steady top-up path without replacing IAP.

The exchange drains your hot wallet first, then dips into cold storage if needed — so protecting big balances in cold storage has a real cost.

Wallet Address & Transaction History

Every player has a public wallet address of the form hx + 30 hex characters (e.g. hx4a7f2b91c3e8d05f6a1b2c3d4e5f6a). When someone steals from you, the theft entry in your device logs shows their truncated wallet address — no IP. Addresses are pseudonymous by design, but you can cross-reference timestamps with your logs to identify attackers.

Your own Wallet page shows your full transaction history: every hack, steal, spam payout, mission reward, and transfer. If you think your address is too well-known, you can regenerate it for 50 Credits. Old transactions keep the old address in their records — only new transactions use the new one.

Quick Access From Anywhere

Your current balances live in the top of every page. The Wallet: badge is tappable — one tap jumps you straight to the Wallet page from anywhere in the app. No need to navigate through menus just to stash freshly stolen crypto.

The Credits: badge right next to it jumps to the Store’s Credits tab. The OC: badge (visible once you have overclocks) jumps straight to the OC packs section.

Credits

The premium currency in Hack Ex 2. Credits unlock the Black Market, OC packs, cosmetic wallpapers, and a few convenience purchases. Earnable for free as a steady drip, or buyable in bulk via IAP for players who want to skip the grind.

How to Earn Credits

• Level up — +10 Credits each level.
• Login streak — Day 4 = 5 Credits, Day 7 = 15 Credits. Subscriptions double both.
• Watch & Earn — 3 Credits per rewarded ad, up to 3 ads/day = 9 Credits.
• Subscriptions — Hacker Pass drips 5 Credits/day (150/mo); Elite Pass drips 10 Credits/day (300/mo).
• Crypto Exchange — Convert in-game Crypto to Credits at 250:1, capped at 750 Credits/month (see Wallet section).
• Credit Packs (IAP) — From $0.99 (100 Cr) up to $49.99 (6,000 Cr with +20% bonus). See In-App Purchases for the full table.

What to Spend Them On

• Black Market — Consumables, Crypto Stashes, and discounted OC packs in a daily rotation. The biggest single use of Credits for active players.
• Overclock packs (Store) — Always-available bulk purchase: Small 50 OC / 55 Cr, Medium 150 / 125, Large 400 / 250, Mega 1,000 / 500. Bigger packs are a better rate per OC.
• Wallpaper packs — Cosmetic device skins:
  • NetRunner — Web/net themed wallpapers
  • Sentinel — Firewall/security themed wallpapers
  • Legacy Collection — 22 classic wallpapers from the original Hack Ex
• Wallet address regeneration — 50 Credits to roll a new public address.
• Username change — First change is free; subsequent changes cost 200 Credits with a 30-day cooldown.

Black Market

The Black Market is the exclusive shop for consumables and rare in-game items — this is the only place to get them. It runs on Credits and has limited stock: once an item sells out for the day, it's gone until the next rotation.

How It Works

• Random daily rotation — The inventory shuffles every day with a randomized selection. What's available today may not come back for a while.
• Daily purchase limits — Each item has a per-player daily cap to prevent hoarding.
• Rarity tiers — Items are classified as Common, Uncommon, or Rare. Rarer items cost more and appear less frequently in the rotation.
• Flash sales — Random limited-time sales can drop at any time with steep discounts on select items. These are unannounced and expire quickly — turn on Black Market notifications in Settings so you get alerted the moment a flash sale goes live.

What's for Sale

All 10 items in the rotation pool. Daily stock pulls 4–5 items at random, weighted by rarity (Common 80% / Uncommon 50% / Rare 25%).

Backdoor 40 Credits Common

Instantly bypass a firewall — no process needed. Higher-level firewalls have an increasing chance to block it.

Exploit Kit 50 Credits Common

Instantly crack a password — no process needed. Higher-level encryptors have an increasing chance to block it.

IP Scrambler 200 Credits Common

Generate a new IP. Cancels all pending attacks against you and wipes all bypass records on your device. Panic button.

OC

OC Pack (50) 45 Credits Uncommon

+50 Overclocks straight to your inventory. Cheaper per OC than the same-size Store pack when on sale.

CS

Crypto Stash (10K) 100 Credits Uncommon 1/day

+10,000 Crypto deposited directly to your cold storage. Bypasses siphon viruses entirely. Limited to one per day.

Wallet Shield 150 Credits Uncommon

Blocks manual crypto theft from your hot wallet for 24 hours. Siphons still earn through it — scan and remove them separately.

System Purge 85 Credits Rare

Removes every virus on your device instantly — spam, rootkit, and siphon — and restores most of the reputation they cost you. The fastest way to undo a swarm infection.

EMP Pulse 80 Credits Rare

Cancels all pending attacks against you AND blocks new ones for 1 hour. Total protection window without changing your IP.

OC

OC Pack (150) 90 Credits Rare

+150 Overclocks. Better rate per OC than the smaller Uncommon pack — grab it whenever it shows up.

CS

Crypto Stash (40K) 400 Credits Rare 1/day

+40,000 Crypto deposited directly to your cold storage. Bypasses siphons. Limited to one per day. Best raw value of any Black Market item.

In-App Purchases

Real-money purchases go through your device’s App Store (Apple) or Play Store (Google). Hack Ex 2 offers two kinds of one-time IAP — Credit packs (buy Credits in bulk) and the Hacker Starter Kit (a one-time offer for new players). Recurring Subscriptions are a separate IAP flow and have their own section below.

Credit Packs

Buy Credits in bulk. Bigger packs include a bonus percentage on top of the base amount, so you get more Credits per dollar as you scale up:

Hacker Starter Kit

A one-time $2.99 offer shown to new players.

When It Triggers

The offer unlocks after you reach Level 2 and then disconnect from your first successfully hacked victim. That moment — when you’ve just proven the game loop works — is when the offer is presented. From then on you have 48 hours to decide before it’s gone for good.

What’s Inside

Total value is roughly 3x what you’d get spending $2.99 on a comparable Credit pack — the deepest single-purchase discount in the game, but it only fires once per account.

Subscriptions

Subscriptions are monthly plans purchased with real money (via Apple/Google in-app purchase, not Credits) that provide daily passive rewards, weekly consumable drops, and exclusive perks. They auto-renew each month.

Spam Economy

Spam is your primary source of passive income. Upload spam viruses to victim devices and crypto accrues continuously at an hourly rate, ready to collect anytime. Scale up with a botnet for massive earnings.

How Spam Earnings Work

Your hourly earnings per victim depend on your spam level and the victim's player level. Higher spam levels earn more per hour, with a per-victim cap of 100 Crypto/hr.

Earnings Per Hour by Spam Level

Spam Decay

Every spam deployment has a hidden age clock that starts when you upload it. Earnings are full-rate for the first 21 days, then slowly decay the longer the virus sits on the same victim, eventually bottoming out at 10% of the original rate around day 100. The floor never drops lower than that — old spam still earns something, just not much.

Decay is per-deployment, not per-victim. If your spam gets antivirus’d off a device and you later re-deploy on the same victim, that new deployment starts a fresh 21-day full-rate window. In practice, the way to beat decay is the same as growing your income in the first place: keep hacking, keep rotating new victims into your botnet, and don’t rely on a handful of ancient spam deployments to carry you.

This is why active hackers out-earn passive ones. A full botnet of 21-day-fresh deployments earns several times what the same botnet earns three months later if nothing’s refreshed.

Refresh Old Deployments (Spam & Siphon)

A spam or siphon deployment is locked at the level it was uploaded. If you dropped a Lv 3 Spam on a victim three weeks ago and you’re now running Lv 10 Spam, that old deployment is still earning at Lv 3 rates — no automatic upgrade.

Two Uninstall Flows — Pick the Right One

There are two places to remove your own virus, and they serve different purposes:

From your own Apps page — for cleanup. Open the spam (or siphon) app, find the deployment in your list, and tap Uninstall. This is the right flow when you just want to drop a deployment: recycling a slot stuck on a low-level victim, pruning a decaying spam that’s no longer worth keeping, or clearing leftovers after re-specing your botnet. You lose the deployment instantly, no access required.

From the victim’s device — for replacement. If your goal is to swap the old virus for a higher-level one, always do it from inside the victim’s device. The reason: uninstalling from your Apps page doesn’t verify your bypass is still valid. If their firewall was upgraded past your bypass, or they activated an IP Scrambler and switched IPs, your bypass is dead — and you’ve thrown away a working deployment with no way to re-upload the new one. Going through the victim’s device first confirms access: if the device page loads, your bypass is alive and you can uninstall + re-upload in the same session. If it doesn’t load, leave the old virus in place — stale earnings beat zero earnings — and either re-bypass or move to fresh targets.

Either way, the new deployment earns at your current level and starts a fresh 21-day full-rate window on the decay clock.

Victim-Device Swap: Step by Step

1. Open the victim’s device. Find them in your processes, search by IP, or tap their entry from a previous hack. If the device page loads, your bypass is still valid.
2. Tap the Apps tab on the victim’s device.
3. Expand the UPLOAD VIRUS section at the top — it’s a collapsible panel showing your 2 virus slots and cards for Spam, Rootkit, and Siphon.
4. Find your deployed virus. Any virus you’ve already installed shows as "Lv. X Installed" with its current stat line (Cr/hr for spam, siphon rate for siphon, defense debuff for rootkit) and an UNINSTALL button.
5. Tap UNINSTALL, then CONFIRM. The button has a two-tap confirmation so you don’t fat-finger a removal. After confirmation the card flips back to an uploadable slot.
6. Upload your current-level virus immediately. Tap the now-empty slot card for the same type (or a different type — you have 2 slots) and start the upload process. Your new virus runs at your latest software level with a fresh decay clock.

If at any point the victim’s device fails to load, your bypass is gone — don’t uninstall. Back out and either re-bypass or move on; the old virus is still earning in the meantime.

• Works the same for siphon — low-level siphons skim tiny percentages, and a single uninstall/re-upload can double or triple your skim rate per victim.
• Self-recall restores 100% of the rep penalty to the victim (no scar), so the victim briefly gets their rep back. That’s fine — it’s a small cost for a much better earning rate.
• Rep from upload is 24-hour cooldown per victim per type, so you won’t earn rep on the re-upload itself. This is about income, not leaderboard climbing.

Spam Scaling Fee

Your first 2 spam slots are free. Beyond that, a fee is deducted on collection based on your total active spam count, not the botnet tier. The fee scales per slot — each additional active spam beyond 2 adds a small increment to your overall fee rate. The 30% cap only applies if you fill all 64 slots at the Nexus tier.

Botnet Tiers

Your botnet determines how many spam slots you have. Upgrade through 7 tiers to maximize your passive income network. Each tier is a one-time purchase — no ongoing maintenance cost.

Botnet Net Earnings (Lv 15 Spam, Day 1)

Example: all slots filled with Lv 15 spam on equal-level victims (62 Crypto/hr base).

Devices

Your device determines processing speed (how fast hacks complete), cold storage capacity, and antivirus scan speed. Upgrading your device is one of the best investments in the game.

How the Speed Boost Works

Your device level divides the base duration of firewall bypasses, password cracks, and antivirus scans. Downloads and uploads go through your Network instead (see below).

Concrete example — a firewall bypass that would take 10 minutes on a Raider (1.0×) completes in:

Antivirus scans use a related but separate formula. A baseline AV scan is 3 hours on a Raider and drops meaningfully each tier: about 1h 30m at Lv 5, ~55 min at Lv 10, and ~48 min at Lv 12. Scan duration also takes a minimum floor, so it never dips below 45 minutes.

Wallpapers

Each device level unlocks 2 cosmetic wallpapers for your device. Additional wallpaper packs can be purchased with Credits.

Network

Your network speed affects download and upload process durations. Faster network = faster file transfers = more efficient hacking.

How the Speed Boost Works

Your network level divides the base duration of downloads and uploads — every file transfer to or from a victim device goes through your network. Bypasses, cracks, and antivirus scans go through your Device instead.

Concrete example — a download or upload that would take 2 minutes on DSL (1.0×) completes in:

One caveat on uploads: the victim’s device level also scales upload time — uploading a virus to a Nova Ultra target is harder than uploading to a Raider. Your network boost still applies on top of that, so faster network always cuts your upload time proportionally.

Processes

Processes are the active operations running on your device — firewall bypasses, password cracks, downloads, uploads, and antivirus scans. They run in real time and can be monitored on the Processes page.

Process Types

Process Status

Speed It Up

• Overclocks — Each overclock skips 90 seconds of process time.
• Ads — Watch up to 3 ads per process, saving ~24% total duration.
• Device upgrades — Higher device level = faster hack processing.
• Network upgrades — Higher network = faster downloads & uploads.

Concurrency Penalty

Running multiple processes at once slows all of them down. Each additional concurrent process adds +75% to the base time, stacking across the pool — two processes take 1.75×, three take 2.5×, four take 3.25×, and so on. A few focused attacks will almost always finish faster than a swarm of slow ones.

Managing Your Processes List

The Processes page fills up fast, so keep it trimmed:

• Filter chips. Narrow the list by process type: Targets (favorites), All, Bypass, Crack, Download, Upload, Antivirus. One tap focuses the view on just what you need right now.
• Targets (target icon). Tap the icon on any process to mark it a target — your pinned list of victims you want to come back to. Use the Targets filter chip to see only your pinned hits. In advanced filters, an Include Targets toggle lets you do the opposite — hide your targeted processes to focus only on the rest of the list.
• Status filters. Advanced filters narrow by state (Running, Success, Failed, Invalidated, Paused). Handy for isolating what you want to keep vs. what you want to delete.
• Long-press to select. Press and hold a process card for a half second (haptic buzz confirms) to enter selection mode. Tap more cards to add them to the selection, then bulk-delete the whole batch in one action. The fastest way to mass-clean old or completed processes.

What to Keep vs. What to Delete

Not every process needs to stay in your list once it’s done. Cleaning aggressively keeps the page scannable and saves you mental overhead:

• Upload & Download — delete after completion. Once an upload or download is done, the process row is purely history. The virus is deployed or the software is on your device — the process entry itself doesn’t provide any ongoing benefit. Clear them out.
• Bypass & Crack You re-enter a victim’s device by tapping the HACK button, which only appears on completed bypass and crack rows (not downloads, uploads, or antivirus scans). The bypass is the more resilient of the two: Encryptor upgrades invalidate the crack (and kill its HACK button) but leave the bypass alone. Only a Firewall upgrade kills both. So keeping the bypass row alone is enough for navigation in every scenario where any row would help — the crack row is redundant. The one thing you give up by deleting it: a visual cue of whether you still have wallet access. You’ll find out when you attempt a wallet action.
• Failed / Invalidated — safe to sweep. Nothing actionable; bulk-delete them.

Upgrades That Invalidate Your Access

Holding a bypass/crack doesn’t guarantee permanent access. Two things on the victim’s side can kill it:

• Victim upgrades their Firewall. Instantly invalidates both your bypass and your crack process rows, and deletes your bypass authorization. Re-entering the device requires re-bypassing the new firewall. But your cracked-password authorization is not deleted by a firewall upgrade — it’s stored separately and survives. So if you re-bypass successfully and the victim hasn’t also upgraded their Password Encryptor past your cracked level, your old wallet access comes back automatically: you can steal crypto again without re-cracking. Only a subsequent encryptor upgrade above your cracked level actually kills the wallet side.
• Victim upgrades their Password Encryptor. Invalidates your crack process only — and only if the new encryption level is higher than what it was when you cracked it. The check runs lazily: the next time you try to access their wallet, your crack is verified against the current encryptor level, and if it’s now outdated, the crack process flips to invalidated and the cracked-password authorization is deleted. Your bypass (and device access) is unaffected.

Proxy & Trace

The proxy/trace system adds a layer of stealth and counter-intelligence to hacking. Proxy hides your IP; Trace reveals attackers hiding behind proxies.

Proxy Masking Tiers

Proxy must be manually activated from the Apps page. You pay a one-time Crypto cost up front to run your proxy for a chosen duration (2, 6, 12, or 24 hours). Activations stack at the same level — buy another while active to extend your timer past 24h, with no cap. While active, your IP is masked progressively based on proxy level:

Stealth Mode (Proxy 20+)

At Proxy level 20 and above, you enter stealth mode — you are completely hidden from random scan results. Nobody can discover you by scanning. However, if someone already has your IP, they can still look you up directly. Activation costs +50% at stealth tier to engage the deeper routing.

Stealth also makes your consumable actions silent — using a Backdoor or Exploit Kit leaves no log entry on the victim’s device. Normal hacking processes (crack, download, upload) still leave log entries when they start, with your IP fully masked as xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. But if the victim’s Trace landed the unmask at your initial firewall bypass, your real IP appears in every subsequent crack, download, and upload log with a [TRACED] tag. Trace is a one-shot that rolls only at bypass creation — it doesn’t re-roll on later logs, so if you weren’t caught at the bypass step, you stay masked for the rest of that session.

You can still be found and targeted if:

• Someone already has your IP from a previous log entry (e.g. from before you went stealth, or Trace unmasked you)
• Someone looks you up by direct IP scan

Proxy Activation Costs

Activation costs scale with proxy level and duration. Longer activations get bulk discounts. Stealth-tier proxies (Lv 20+) cost ×1.5 on top of the base formula:

Proxy Rep Bonus

Successful hacks completed while your Proxy is active grant a +10 reputation bonus (in addition to the base hack rep). The bonus applies on download or upload completion — the moment your hack chain pays out. It’s the game’s reward for practicing operational security.

The bonus follows the same 24-hour per-victim per-process-type cooldown as base hack rep, so spamming multiple downloads against the same target won’t multiply the bonus. One stealthy hack chain on a fresh victim = +10. Different victim or different process type (e.g. switching from download to upload) opens a new bonus window.

Extending vs. Upgrading Mid-Session

An activation captures the Proxy software level at the moment you turn it on. That captured level is what masks your IP for the entire activation window — it doesn’t change just because your Proxy software does.

Extending is cheap and stacks. While your proxy is active, buying another activation at the same level simply tacks the new duration onto your existing expiry. A fresh 24-hour activation on top of a proxy with 10 hours left gives you 34 hours total. No time is lost, and you can chain extensions indefinitely as long as your software level hasn’t changed.

Upgrading mid-session keeps you stuck at the old level. If you upgrade your Proxy software while an activation is still running, your currently-active proxy keeps using the old level. The game won’t silently switch you to the new level — if it did, you’d be paying for a Lv 5 activation and getting Lv 10 masking for free.

To actually use your upgraded proxy, you have to re-activate. That starts a fresh activation at the new level and cost — but the remaining time on your old activation is forfeited. The Apps page will warn you about the level mismatch and show exactly how much time you’re about to lose before you confirm.

Trace (Counter-Proxy)

Trace is your defense against proxy users. When someone initiates a firewall bypass against you, your Trace software automatically attempts to reveal their real IP.

When Trace and Proxy are at equal levels, it’s roughly a coin flip. Higher Trace outperforms Proxy; lower Trace struggles.

Trace only rolls at firewall bypass creation (including Backdoor consumable use). It does NOT re-roll on password crack, download, upload, or when an attacker browses your device, logs, crew chat, or crew member list after hacking you. If Trace doesn’t land the unmask at that one bypass moment, the attacker’s proxy masking holds through the rest of their activity against you.

Note: stealth proxy users (Proxy 20+) are hidden from scans entirely (Trace doesn’t help there), but when they hack you via normal bypass, Trace still gets its one chance to unmask their real IP in your logs.

Keygen

Download software from hacked victims, then use your Keygen to generate a license key and unlock it at a fraction of the store price. The key cost depends on the level gap between what you have and what you're unlocking.

How It Works

1. Download software from a victim's device (requires bypassed firewall).
2. The software arrives locked. It can't be used until you generate a key.
3. Use your Keygen to generate a license key at a fraction of the store price.
4. You get full XP based on the unlocked level, same as buying outright.

Key Cost

The key cost is a fraction of the Store price, scaling with the level gap between what you own and what you’re unlocking. A 1-level jump costs 15% of the target level’s store price; the ratio climbs linearly to 50% at a gap of 20+.

Even at the worst 50% ratio, keygen still halves what the Store would charge — and a single big jump is dramatically cheaper than chaining many small ones, because each small jump pays its own 15% fee on that level’s store price. If you download a high-level copy of the software, unlock it directly instead of stepping up one level at a time.

Either way, you get full XP based on the level you unlock, not the key cost. Combined with stolen software, this makes keygen a fast XP engine for active hackers.

Antivirus Deep Dive

Antivirus is your only defense against viruses. Understanding the removal formula helps you decide when to upgrade.

Removal Chance

Removal success depends on the gap between your AV level and the virus level. The system is asymmetric — over-leveled AV gains +10% per level up to a 95% cap at +5, while under-leveled AV is severely throttled and then declines gently but still gives you a fighting chance to scrub viruses off.

Scan Duration

Scan speed depends on your device level, not your AV level. Higher device = faster scans. AV scans share the hack process pool with Firewall Bypass and Password Crack — running an AV scan alongside a bypass or crack slows them all by 75% per concurrent process.

Crews

Crews are teams of up to 30 players who work together. Join a crew for chat, coordinated raids, and shared rootkit buffs. You can only belong to one crew at a time — pick your allegiance.

Crew Features

• Crew Chat — Real-time messaging with crew members.
• Rootkit Buff — When a crewmate uploads a rootkit to a target, the defense debuff applies for your entire crew. If multiple crewmates have rootkits on the same victim, only the highest-level rootkit is used — the debuffs don’t stack. That means one crewmate running Lv 10 Rootkit carries the whole crew; uploading your own Lv 3 rootkit on top of it adds nothing to the debuff. Coordinate so your crew’s highest-level rootkit sits on your priority targets.
• Join Policies — Crews can be Open (anyone), Request (approval needed), or Closed.
• Roles — Leader, Officer, and Member with different management permissions.
• Crew Tags — Your crew affiliation shows on leaderboards and player cards.

Crew OPSEC: Protecting the Whole Crew

When an attacker hacks any one of your crewmates, they get a window into the crew’s inner workings. From the victim’s device they can browse crew chat history and the crew member list — including author IPs on every chat post and every member’s IP in the roster. Your crew’s secrecy is only as strong as its weakest member.

Proxy: Per-Individual IP Masking

Your Proxy only masks your own IP — it does nothing for anyone else. In crew views (chat posts and member roster alike), each person’s IP is displayed according to their own proxy level at the time. If Alice runs Lv 16+ proxy she shows as xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. If Bob has no proxy, his full real IP appears right next to Alice’s masked one. You can’t protect teammates who don’t protect themselves.

Trace Doesn’t Re-roll in Crew Views

Trace only rolls at firewall bypass creation (see the Proxy & Trace section). It does not re-roll when an attacker browses a hacked victim’s crew chat or member list. That means once an attacker is reading those crew views, proxy masking holds — your crewmates’ Trace software cannot unmask you after the fact. Your own proxy is the only thing between your IP and the attacker’s target queue.

Message Encryptor: Whole-Chat Defense of the Hacked Device

Message Encryptor works differently from Proxy — it’s not per-poster. When an attacker hacks a crew member, the game checks that victim’s encryptor status:

• If the hacked crewmate has Message Encryptor enabled, the attacker sees every post in the crew chat blanked to [Message Encrypted] — including posts written by members who don’t own the encryptor themselves.
• If the hacked crewmate lacks Message Encryptor (or has it toggled off), the attacker reads the entire crew chat in cleartext — including posts from members who paid for an encryptor. The defense is on the viewing device, not on the written message.

That’s a big deal for crew security: a single member without the encryptor is a full chat-log leak for everyone the moment they get hacked. One missing encryptor compromises conversations written by the entire crew.

Leaderboards

Compete globally with all players. Rankings are based on how much your Overall Score grows during the period — it’s a climb, not a lifetime tally, so fresh players aren’t locked out by veterans.

Overall Score

Score is floor(Level × Reputation0.75). Level scales your score linearly — double your level and your score doubles. Reputation scales sub-linearly — doubling rep only multiplies score by about 1.68×, and each additional rep point buys less score than the last. Both contribute meaningfully: a high level with trashed reputation won’t rank well (a Lv 5 player with 1,000 rep out-scores a Lv 20 player with 1 rep), and rep farming at a low level hits a ceiling set by your level multiplier. Keep both growing to climb.

Ranking Periods

Boards track the change in your Overall Score across the window, not the absolute value. New score − starting score = your rank delta.

Your Name on the Board

Usernames are 3–20 characters, alphanumeric plus underscore and hyphen. Your first username change is free; after that each change costs 200 Credits with a 30-day cooldown. Change it from the Settings page.

Leveling & XP

XP is earned by spending crypto on upgrades. The more you upgrade, the faster you level. Hacking doesn't give XP directly — it earns you crypto, which funds the upgrades that generate XP.

XP Required Per Level

XP requirements grow with each level. Early levels are fast; later levels require significantly more investment:

Level-Up Rewards

Reputation

Reputation is the second factor in your Overall Score (alongside level). It scales sub-linearly — a compressed bonus multiplied onto your level — so a moderate rep pool goes a long way, but infinite rep farming at a low level runs into diminishing returns. Rep is earned through successful hacking and defense, and lost when you get hacked or infected with viruses.

Earning Reputation

Important: The 24-hour cooldown only gates reputation. Crypto theft, downloaded software, and virus effects still land every time — you just won’t earn rep for repeat-hitting the same target.

Losing Reputation

Level Gap Penalty

The gap compares your software level to the victim’s defense software level, not player levels. Over-leveled software against under-leveled defenses earns reduced or zero rep:

Daily Missions & Login Streaks

Log in daily and complete missions for free crypto, XP, overclocks, and credits.

Daily Missions

Each day you get 3 missions drawn at random from hack groups (bypass, crack, download) and upload groups (spam, rootkit, siphon). Each group can appear at most once per day — no all-upload rotations. Each target victim only counts once per mission slot within a 48-hour window.

Reward type: hack-group missions pay Crypto; upload-group missions pay Overclocks instead. Missions reset at UTC midnight.

Login Streaks

Consecutive daily logins cycle through a 7-day reward loop. Miss a day and the streak resets to Day 1.

Heads up on siphon: Day 3 and Day 5 Crypto rewards land in your hot wallet, not cold storage. That means if an attacker has a Siphon virus on you, it skims those incoming rewards before you see them. Subscription daily Crypto goes straight to cold storage and bypasses siphon — login streak Crypto does not. Keep your antivirus current on streak days.

Watch & Earn

Free currency for a few seconds of your time. Watch a short rewarded video ad and get Credits, Crypto, or Overclocks dropped straight into your account.

Where to Find It

Open the Store from the bottom navigation bar, then tap the Credits tab. Scroll past the Credits packs and Overclock packs — the Watch & Earn panel sits at the bottom of the tab with three ad slots (one per reward type). If a slot shows a countdown, that reward type is on cooldown; come back later or claim a different one.

Daily Limits & Payouts

Each reward type has 3 watches per day — claim them all and you walk away with a meaningful F2P stipend every day:

Tips & Strategy

Proven strategies for new and experienced players. Bookmark this section.

Early Game (Levels 1-15)

Mid Game (Levels 15-30)

Late Game (Levels 30+)

General Tips