The Ultimate Guide to Online Hacking (as BOTH hacker and finder)

I created this guide after hours of enduring hours of bad mistakes, lessons learnt and eventually improving myself in the hacking game.
I also notice there's guides for hacking yet practically no guides for people trying to FIND the hackers once they start the backdoor. So if you're looking for one, look no further.

Online Hacking is probably the most popular game mode in this game and also a ton of fun if you know what you're doing.
It's also one risky undertaking both for finders and hackers and luck plays a major part in your success. Get to intrude near ideal locations like a multi-storey carpark and you're in luck. Intrude in a wide empty area or in front of a player just baiting for you to come, and you're screwed.
In the same way, victims of intrusions will be in luck if they just happen to be in ideal spots like ontop of a roof or in a empty industrial park when they get invaded.
There's no shortcut here. Nevertheless, here's several tips you can follow to up your odds for a successful online hacking game.

Being the 'finder' requires just as much skill than you think and is rarely about luck.

If you want to suceed as the finder, it's highly recommended you try to build up your notoriety first and reach the 7500 mark. That's when you'll obtain a very useful perk to shrink hacking circles smaller. Couple this with the 'level-of-spot' trick (elaborated below) and I guarantee you will succeed in finding that pesky hacker almost 99% of the time.

DETECT THEM
This is pretty obvious. Better to detect a hacker before he begins the backdoor installation. There are several ways to tell when you're being hacked, but the best way of all, is to just check through your main menu. Try pausing your game (press s and if you notice nothing has paused and outlines are moving, someone is definitely in your game.
Other ways to know:
- Focus doesnt work
- Going to Online tab doesnt work
- Map doesn't pause. If you driving and open up the map, your icon will continue moving.
- No fixer contracts or crimes in progress popping up
- Missions and minigames not available
- If you have your profiler on, it'll automatically turn off (only works if you're on foot)

COUNTER THEM
When you are aware there's an intruder early, it's easy to act fast to counter.

1. If you're in a vehicle, DONT get out. Keep driving as fast as you can and in one direction to get as far away from the hacker as possible.
2. Always look behind you on the road to look for any suspicious diriving (car cutting roads, crashing into other vehicles etc.).
3. Look out for any motorcycles. If you see a motorcyclist, it's 100% definitely a hacker. Once they start evading, players on motorcycles are harder to catch up to however, so try to pretend you didn't see them until they're close enough for you to kill.
4. If you spot intrusion early, there's two strategic choices you can try: Lure, Trap or Rush

Lure: If in vehicle, drive to the end of a pier or somewhere at the end of the map where there's no other civilians. The hacker will easily stand out once you can get into an empty open space.

Trap: If on foot and nowhere near a vehicle, try to find a place to hide in and set up, preferably where there is only one or two openings (eg. in a shop, atop a roof, inside a small house). Do note players can see over corners when they take cover behind a wall. Also make sure you're not sight of any camera. If there IS a camera, you can take control of the camera to prevent the hacker from using it. From here, you can also set up some defenses like proximity IEDs to help in detection.

''The most troll spot for baiting hackers. The hacker should spawn roughly in the middle of the lane (as circled), making him/her immediately a wide open target''

Rush: If in a FAST vehicle, keep driving on the roads and don't ever stop. The hacker is unlikely to catch up to you, even if he teleports at the 1000m mark. Wait till you get the save icon, indicating the hacker has run out of time. Probably not the best option there is, unless you like dirving continuously for 4 minutes straight.

''the second most troll spot. Smart hackers will just give up and quit. Noobs will appear on the beach, making themselves big targets''

FIND THEM
If you fail to spot the hacker invasion early, you're pretty much at the mercy of the hacker's hiding spot of choice unfortunately.
If so, you can either run around in circles like a blind bat or try to think smart.
What's presented here is the most aggressive approach which you can adopt if you don't really care about gaining bad reputation as cost of finding the hacker:

1. First check all vehicles in the proximity. Once done, plant IEDs on all parked vehicles.
2. Get a good examination of the surrounding area and try to pinpoint the least noticeable hiding spots. Divide out sections to clear individually from here.
3. If there's alleyways and roofs, use cameras whenever possible for hard-to-reach spots. Otherwise, you'll need to take the hard approach of checking thorougly. Once you're sure the section is cleared, use some proximity IEDs to prevent the hacker from escaping out of a specific zone. Of course, also make sure the IEDs arent in the way of innocent passers-bys.
4. If there's train stations, make sure you check all ends of it. Stations tend to have signboards at the end of the boardwalk, don't miss out on those. The trains coming and going can make things a little tricky but it's unlikely for the hacker to actually going inside the train. If they do, they'll have to end up out in the open, on the train tracks somewhere
5. By now, the circle should have shrank the most. Pull out a jamcom to give extra time and take advantage of the smaller circle. Start shooting the crowd to disperse them. This should root out any possibility of civilian hides. If it's a place with no civilians, feel free to spam proximity mines to try to corner the hacker and prevent a round-about attempt at evasion.
   If there's parked cars around, activate your IEDs to blow all of them up. This should root out all hiding-in-car possiblities.
6. Level-of-spot trick: This is a very underrated trick I often use in my book that few knows about. By using this, you can find out the level a hacker is in by actually going out of the hacking area. The yellow objective marker will then appear, on a certain level of altitude. This is VERY useful in giving out the hacker's hiding spot level, especially in places where there are lots of accessible roofs.
7. Finally the meter should be near 100%. Don't panic now, there's still time. Once the possiblities of vehicle and civlian hiding is rooted out, turn to the environmental possiblities.
   Hiding in bushes, hiding behind some small cover, or the hacker might just be playing the 'merry-go-round' chase with you. If you don't have time to check every corner, just blast the hiding spots with your grenade launcher. A single hit to the hacker is enough for the game to consider him as detected. Better than nothing, right?

a hacker's physical characteristics and actions
Regardless of how much they try, there's almost no way any hacker can completely blend in with a crowd 100% all the time. There's multiple indications you can look for to identify a hacker early.

- they ride motorcycles.
- vehicles they ride do not get destroyed easily. Whip out a nade launcher and shoot a car, if it goes in flames with a single hit, it's an NPC-driven. If the vehicle seems unusually durable and can withstand several shots, then it's player-driven.
- unnatural driving, no need to explain further.
- sprinting and jogging. No NPCs in this game sprint. In the same way, a player's jog is quite unique and NPCs only have the same movement throughout. So if you see a pedestrian walking, then jogging or stopping, then it's a player.

PREVENT THEM
Lastly, for people that just hate having to deal with intrusions but want to keep your hacking points, you can use the Online search as a very good blockage. Just mark the map icon or objective you want to reach on your map, then switch Online tab and start an online game search. Your GPS waypoint and map icon might disappear but you still get the play the game so just drive casually to your marker. Once you reach your destination, quit the search and quickly start your mission.

Also worth nothing is once you complete a mission, any mission, you usually should have about 1 minute of protected time where no intrusion will take place. Use this time to drive to your next nearest mission destination.

It's of course more riskier playing as a hacker. and even riskier if you attempt to go for those players labelled with Strong or Very Strong hackinfg defense.

One mistake alot of hackers make is starting the backdoor immedaitely after the hack. No, you don't do that. That 60 seconds you're given is precious time to find the perfect hiding spot. Or if you're very sure the hacking target is AFK or not gonna move anytime soon, you can try finding a hiding spot BEFORE hacking him, giving you an extra 4 minutes of time window.

Some crucial tips:

DONT BE A DUMBASS

1. DONT go inside a train during a hack. Once a train starts moving, you're pretty much screwed.
2. DONT go on the train tracks. There's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of trains coming in and out the station all the time so unless you want to be mincement, don't bother.
3. DONT go into water. Yes, swimming in the water right under the noses of the player trying to find you would be good. If only, but too bad the game doesnt allow you to.
4. DONT go to far out of targets circle area before starting hack. Once you're in the red zone, you're pretty much screwed in settling on your own ideal hiding spot or worse, lose once the timer runs out.
5. DONT try to stand or walk among civlians. This is by far the worst way of hiding. Seriously, don't do it. Once the finder whips out his machinegun and starts causing a panic scene, you'll stand out like a sore thumb. The profiler is also very wide in scope, making it easy to detect you when the finder is running blindly across civilians.

HIDE LIKE A NINJA

1. Yes, DO hide in vehicles. I know many are saying vehicles isn't a good place to hide. Still, it provides the safest route to escape and you can hide among other cars. If you're lucky, the finder may be a newbie who doesnt even know you can hide in cars. I've seen plenty of such cases with Very Weak or Weak defense players. Still, vehicle hiding is the best getaway for an evasion if you ever feel like you have little chance of suceeding a hack anyway.
   But the best thing about hiding in vehicles is you can make an quick evasion once spotted. Even easier when you're hiding in traffic and not as a parked car.
   Unless you can find a very solid hiding spot you're 80-99% sure you won't be busted in, then go ahead with that plan instead.

''worse comes to worst, just reverse and bail out''

2. Stick to the edges of the hiding area. The further. the better, till the point where moving one step will have out of hacking range. The finder is less likely to go around the hacking circle than within it. Just try not to stick out like a sore thumb but stay in a good hiding spot and behind cover.
3. Play the merry-go-round. This trick requires the most work yet it can be the most effective, especially if the hiding area is quite a maze. Just find a solid barrier to hide behind (gate, fence eg.) or something you can fully go around (truck, road barrier eg.). and when the finder comes to your side, just go to the opposite side. Rinse and repeat. But if the finder goes on the top of the object you're hiding in...well, you're screwed.
4. If you can get underground, DO it. I once had the chance to find a hiding spot with both an elaborate above and underground area. Once the detection circle starts shrinking, it'll exclude the route of stairs leading underground, making the finder basically think I can only be hiding aboveground.
5. If you can find a parking lot as hiding spot, USE it. This is really, the best and easiest hiding spot you can have at your disposal. Choose an area that encompasses not just the parking spot but also the streets below, which would make it even more of a pain in the ass for the finder. The finder won't have the time to check every level of the parking lot as well as the streets below, so the chances of finding you is very, very, slim.
   Unless the finder knows the 'level of altitude' trick as mentioned earlier, which is very unlikely since barely anyone will read this guide. Ha...
6. Lastly, also consider the environment you're in. If in a container shipyard, you might have to move around alot more and climb up containers. And please don't hide inside open containers. That's really the most obvious spot.
   Some places also have thick bushes you can hide in (you cant crouch so only take cover). Only problem with this is you might still get detected by the profiler since you're technically, still out in the open.

TRICK 'EM

1. If it's at night, just keep spamming blackouts till you run out of them. This is an amazingly useful tactic but depends on how much you have at your disposal.
2. The steampipe trick. The most obscure yet effective trick I've tried before. Try to do this one when the sun sets or at night. Whenever you see a steampipe on the road, USE it. It'll cause a big traffic (provided you aren't in some countryside) and this is how you create a hiding spot among the roads. From here, pick some vehicle to hide in or just take cover against. Alternatively, you can stay close to the steam explosion and when you see the target get near, just keep jogging around the steam exposion which should shield you from the view of the finder. Furthermore, the finder can't go near the explosion either, making you near undetectable, so long as you keep jogging around the explosion and out of his line of sight. It's crazy risky but actually works so darn well.

3. Cause IED distractions. Some people find this effective although I personally don't. The idea is an IED explosion should divert the finder's attention but this does not usually happen. If anything, an explosion simply means you aren't at the explosion spot but somewhere nearby.
   Best used only if you have access to a camera.
4. The 'opposite ends' tactic. If you're not confident in the safety of your hiding spot, this is the tactic to use. Finders are unlikely to recheck areas they've been to so use this to your advantage. If there are multiple areas available (eg. top and bottom levels), then don't just stay in one level. Once a finder thoroughly checks the top floor like the train station or roof, and goes to the bottom floor, you should go to the top floor instead. However, it requires alot more mobility and some risk of running straight into the hacker if he ever decides to randomly U-turn.

WHAT TO DO ONCE SPOTTED
Spotted does not necessaily mean detected by the profiler. If you're that lucky, of course, start running away like mad. Keep as far distance away from the finder to avoid being profiled.
Once you're profiled, it's time to evade.
This pretty much depends on the spot you're in at this point as well as the killing skills of the finder. If it's night time, first instinct should be activating a blackout.

If not near a vehicle, it's better to try to escape on foot. Don't run out in the open, but instead, go into alleyways and take many corners. The finder will likely chase you on foot as well.
Second is to find a vehicle as soon as you can find one. Any vehicle would be good except for big ones like trucks and lorries. The finder may try to blast you with a nade launcher but generally, a player-driven vehicvle should be able to survive up to 3 grenade shots. Just don't expose your front-end of the vehicle.

And that's it for tips on how to be a good hacker or finder. Honestly I don't know why people are so obsessed with the online hacking segment anyway. There's better ways to gain notoriety points than risk losing it in Online Hack. Other game modes like Online Racing and Tailing is far easier although you tend get less points.
But of course, nothing's more satisfying than getting to laugh at your opponents through successful hack or foiling an intrusion.