Getting Started In Hacking
What it is?
Many of you listened about hacking either in the newspaper through a kind of fraud attention article in your newspaper or see your heroes hacking the FBI network in movies .but what is hacking actually is "a supernatural power given to your heroes by almighty gods ". No, not at all, hacking "hacking is the act of exploiting a vulnerability". Now, what's a vulnerability. it is a weakness that exists in your environment, in your machine, at your door locks, and even in your mind. The Person who plays with these vulnerabilities and makes computers and persons behave abnormally is called a Hacker. In this blog, we will be talking about types of hackers, ethical hacking, why we need it, and basic hacking methodologies.
Types of Hackers
There are many categories of hackers but hackers can broadly classified into three types based on their Intent.
1) White Hat
These are the good guys who hack for good by responsibly reporting the vulnerability or hired by companies to test their network
2) Black Hat
These are the guys with evil intention mostly money-making, those who hack either for their fun or to damage the companies reputation.
3) Grey Hat
yes you guessed it right, these can act as both white hat and black hat depending on the scenario
Ethical Hacking and Why we need it?
Many of you think it is illegal to hack and yes it is, but what if you do hacking by abiding by a contract with the organization legally, this practice is called Ethical Hacking and it is mainly carried by white hat hackers. Organizations are very keen on protecting their customer's personal information, any leak in personal information leads to a huge loss of company reputation and customers' trust, so testing the organization's network ethically makes the organization more strong against the actual attack.
Hacking Methodology
A job is half done if it is planned, it's not like you have seen a target and you have attacked. This is a 'noob' approach that may put you in trouble and make your attack unsuccessful. To cherish your goal you need to follow the proper hacking methodology discussed below
1) Reconnaissance
the most important and time taking process but with huge outcomes. it's a process of gathering all the information about the target like the information available on social media, company sites, offices, and other platforms .the information you have collected will play a. game-changer role in later stages of hacking. Believe me, if you are a good reckoner, then 70 % of your job is done.
2) Scanning And Enumeration
once you collect basic information, it's time to dive deep and into companies network and creating the map of services and architecture on which the company is working. finding the versions of the software and hardware that the company is using. (tip: technologies that companies use can found on the requirement page of companies career website).
3) Exploitation
The most fascinating and challenging step, it's time to find loopholes in the services and taking advantage of the loopholes. The information that you got in during the recon phase will help to crack the company network.
4) Post Exploitation and Maintain Access
Hurray!!! you are in now what to do next, eat donuts (sorry bad joke I know ). You have to explore the network and find ways to get higher privileges and maintain that privilege without anyone knowing in the company that you are in so, you need be very silent in the network
5) Clearing Tracks
every time you do any action with a network/computer, you leave tracks behind, the network saves information regarding this commonly in logs. These logs can be used by the company to find any suspicious activity in the networks as well as to track you. Therefore clearing tracks is very important (tip: clearing logs in a computer also creates a log, so do remember to clear that log also.)
What's next?
Now you know the basic methodologies, take a pen-paper, think about the target around you, write down how who will you perform above 5 steps on your target. Happy to listen to your insights in the comment section of the blog.
Resources :
1)Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnik (Book)
2)Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy(Book)
3)Hackers(1995) by Iain Softley (Movie)
4)The Great Hack(2019) by Karim Amer (Movie)
5)Mr. Robot by Sam Esmail(web series)
Disclaimer:
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the blog belong solely to the author and may conflict with others. Readers are advised to read at their own risk and expertise.
Nice one 🙂
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