First of all, you'll want to be confident with the game, knowing how you can always succeed in your hacks and how you acknowledge the basic use of the equipment required. Knowledge is power, and power is money.

Precautions

• If you have not already, make sure your first bounce is InterNIC. This system is the most easiest to delete your logs from, as you cannot get traced on it, so you can easily just connect to it from the network menu without getting caught.
  
• If you do not know how the trace system works, refer to this demonstration: The Trace System (Diagram)[puu.sh]
  
• Make sure you go to InterNIC and add about 15/20 addresses. Then connect to all of these in the world map and use the "Save" button. You have successfully created a bounce network, whenever you discover a new network or you connect to a new network, make sure to save it before you do, so you can continually expand your bounce network and become virtually indestructible the more you hack.
  
• Trace Tracker v4 is not required, in general, with a bounce network that has 20+ addresses, the trace time is most likely above 60 seconds or 90 seconds, I have a bounce network that has around 50+ addresses and its trace time on most banks on average is about 120 seconds each bank I hack, so your best bet might be to get more than 20 addresses for your bounce network. This is a good general rule of thumb regardless, as central mainframes are a pain in the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ass. You'll know what I mean later on further into the game.
  
• You are going to need MONEY. Sorry about that. You need money to make money, that is just the rule of the game. You're also going to need a hell of a lot of it.
  
• Last of all, I seriously recommend you understand the game and use these precautions for a few very basic hacks, because having your first bounce as InterNIC and using it as a citadel to remove your logs is a great rule of thumb, including the bounce networks, and you may be confused if you haven't been doing this previously, so you need to get used to these new mechanics that I introduced to you.

Getting to terms with what to hack.
You are going to need to connect to InterNIC and search for a bank. Choose any one, but we cannot choose the Uplink International Bank to do our first hack, or even our last hack. The problem is, when you hack banks you require voice identification. However, no matter how long you scour the game you will not find the contact number to the owner of Uplink. It might be a bug, but at this point I don't know. Maybe the admin system was just not designed to be accessed. Moving on, modifying the filter in InterNIC to show banks will, no doubt, get you some banks you'll want to bite your teeth into.

Modifying the InterNIC filter to show banks...[i.imgur.com]

I located mine. Note the name of the bank, as this is critical. Now modify the filter to show everything about that name. Like so,

Angel Technology[i.imgur.com]

You're going to want to add the "International Bank" and the "Public Access Server" of that company to your network list, After you've done that, connect to the "Public Access Server" of that company and add the administrator's phone number to your networks list. You should have notes of the company's name and the administrator's name, so you can avoid confusion. You can create notes in-game, like so,

Sending a mail to myself to make a note...[i.imgur.com]

Or you can just use a notepad IRL. Your choice. The notepad is kind of easier, but it shouldn't make a difference. After you have done that, you have now prepared yourself, for hacking a bank. This company of the networks you have added to your list, are what is going to be your first bank hack. Now you know what you're going to hack, it's time to prepare for the equipment we are going to use to actually hack.

Preparing equipment for the hack.
There are a plethora of equipment available to you at the Uplink Internal Services System, but choosing the right one is difficult. To be secure, we will be using the most highest version of the software that you are required to bring with you, as bank security can fluctuate between banks. As far as I know, and do not hold me to this, the only systems that have firewall security on them are as follows, the Uplink International Bank, Central Mainframes, LANs and Government networks (excluding InterNIC). Internal Services Systems (excluding Uplink Internal Services System) will never have any security except a monitor, but Central Mainframes can fluctuate between security. Some may just have a proxy, while others will have fullscale firewall security. This is why I recommend you get the highest level bypasses, ect.

Equipment:

Connection Analysis (20000c) - Bypasses require this HUD addition to actually be applied to security.

Log Deleter v4.0 (4000c) - When you hack banks, these are counted as among the highest security systems in the game (despite them being ridiculously easy to hack, and LANs being near enough impossible), so the game makes it if you get passively traced (a 100% chance) then you require Log Deleter 4.0 otherwise you will ALWAYS get caught.

Proxy Bypass v5.0 (20000c) - Banks will always have proxy security, and the exact level I haven't really investigated, so it's best to go with the highest version. To be able to delete the logs at the bank, and to make transactions, you will need to bypass proxy security.

Password Breaker (0c) - To get past the administrative security, you will need this.

Decypher v3.0 (8000c) - This is shockingly cheap considering this is required to bypass administrative security.

Voice Analyser v1.0 (5000c) - This is to connect to the administrator's phone number and get a sample of his voice to bypass the administrative security.

This totals to 57,000 credits to purchase all mandatory equipment. This is with all the highest level equipment, FYI. The highest level may not be required, but a few in-game days you will run out of beginner jobs to do, and you will have to move on to jobs where systems have proxy and firewall security, so its best to get the highest level equipment early. One tip, jobs where you have to check the financial information "of an enemy" are very high paying jobs for jobs that don't even require proxy bypassing or firewall bypassing, you can literally type in the userID given in the e-mail and just set the Password Breaker on the password box, and it will crack the password for that user's account. As long as you have a big enough bounce network it's piss easy. That will help you rack up credits, and eventually you'll be able to grab this loadout. That is when you can start earning back all of those credits.

Notes before we get started:

Banks/bank accounts will never have a preset amount of money, so you can find 400 credits in one account, and 20,000 in another, but it is completely random. One tip I recommend is that you use all of that accounts loan up and put the person's account into overdraft, and really ruin someones life. :p However, hacking banks can take 60 seconds each account after you establish the first setup step, which will be explained in the next section, and it is way faster than ANY job on the missions board, because of the annoyingly high level missions that now get flooded there.

Also, once you hack your first bank, the game will flip the ♥♥♥♥ out, and you will laugh, believe me. You'll know what I mean soon. Anyway, let's get some action.

Now don't follow these actions after everything I say, otherwise that'll get you caught, and it's just not recommended. Read this guide and THEN do it. Okay, this is what you're going to need to do.

FIrst turn on your trace tracker. You're going to need some approximate time when you connect, and it's going to be useful for just that. Now start up voice analyser and connect to the administrator's phone number, and take a sample of his voice. Don't worry, it's automatic. After that's finished, and it'll say, don't worry, then disconnect and proceed to connect to the bank THROUGH YOUR BOUNCE NETWORK. Don't do it without one, otherwise it's an instant detection. As always, check that InterNIC is your first bounce, then proceed to connect to the bank. Then click on administration, and do the VOICE ACTIVATION FIRST. Do not apply any bypasses. The voice activiation won't trigger any trace, so it's the best to do first. After that, do the decypher, and then the password breaker, and you're in. Now take note of how many bank accounts you deem necessary. Only note the user ID and the password, not the name, and then get out of there, connect to InterNIC and delete those logs. You are safe now. You have successfully completed the the setup stage.

You should have noted down how ever many bank accounts you desired, so now is the easiest part, but it can be the most tedious if you do not know what you are doing, especially when you haven't actually hacked a bank before. The next stage I like to call the sweeping stage. You sweep all the money out of the documented userID's you have now. Your notes should look something like this,

My Notes for all the User IDs I extracted[i.imgur.com]

If they do, this is good, you can now start successfully sweeping up. Reconnect to the bank, through a bounce network as always, and then proceed to login to one of the User IDs on the notes you have. This shouldn't get you a trace, just don't apply the proxy bypass yet. You are also free to close the Voice Analyser, you no longer require it. Now look at the accounts financial information. How much money does he have? Take a mental note of it and proceed to make the transfer. Make sure to max out the guys loan first though, some banks loans are ridiculously high. One of the menus on the icons at the bottom of the screen has a "dollars" icon, this is your financial accounts. Disconnect from the current UserID you logged into and make your own account in the system. You should now notice that a new account has popped up in your financial menu. Now reconnect to that UserID in your notes, and proceed to make the transfer. The financial menu contains the bank IP and user id you will need to transfer the balance of the UserID into. However, you will need to bypass the proxy to make any transfer, as clicking the transfer button will show you. After all the details have been put in, apply the proxy bypass (it's the newest icon in the menu at the bottom of the screen, try and figure it out for yourself) and then press transfer. You are now on a ticking time bomb. The trace has been made and you will need to do these following things:

Delete the statement of the transfer in the UserID's statements. Then connect to your account in the same bank, and delete the same statement. Disconnect and connect to InterNIC to delete the passive traceable logs. You are done. Not hard, right? Now wait a minute after dong all of that, and proceed, to ♥♥♥♥ yourself laughing. Congratulations, you just hacked a bank. What you can also do is look at the statements for some accounts you get, if they transferred an awful lot of money to a certain account, follow the trace using the IP Lookup program and take note of the UserID, and you could potentially hit a jackpot of millions in someones account. While I was following my own advice to confirm the validity of this guide, I even stumbled across an account that had over a million credits inside.

My beautiful surprise

As you can see, banks are completely random, and you can have the most amazing of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ luck. Good luck to you guys out there, and happy hacking.

Some additional screenshots to help you understand what HUD you apply the proxy bypass, and how you know the proxy bypass is enabled, and applied.

Denied by Proxy[i.imgur.com]

The Design of Where You Apply Your Bypasses[i.imgur.com]

Proxy Bypass Active[i.imgur.com]

You now should have grasped the concept of how you hack banks in Uplink. Great job. You should of grasped the concept that you can also make millions hacking these banks, as you saw me do it too. Undoubtly, I was extremely lucky, and there is no reason that you can't obtain this amount either, so get hacking! You don't need to read this anymore!

Stay tuned for more guides, I will link to a guide that I'm going to make fairly soon about tracing, how to avoid getting traced, hacker etiquette, and secrets. Almost an ultimate guide, but not AS ultimate. Thanks for reading.

Please check out other awesome guides:
(These aren't made by me, they are made by the community.)

Using the "Voice Analyser"
Uplink - Shutting Down the Global System

And if you think you have the know how, please, make your own guide!

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