Hacking Phases

The Five Phases of Hacking

Reconnaissance :-

• Reconnaissance refers to the preparatory phases where an attacker seeks to gather information about a target prior to launching an attack.
• This is the primary phase where the Hacker tries to collect as much information as possible about the target.
• It includes Identifying the Target, finding out the target's IP Address Range, Network, DNS records, etc.
• An attacker might return to this phase when he/she needs to find out more information about the target.

 Types of reconnaissance :-

1. Passive reconnaissance : It involves acquiring information without direct interaction with the target. For example, searching public records or news releases.
2. Active reconnaissance : It involves interacting with the target by any means. For example, telephone calls or emails to the help desk or technical department.

Scanning :-

• Scanning refers to a pre-attack phase when the attacker scans the network for specific information on the basis of information gathered during reconnaissance.
• It involves taking the information discovered during reconnaissance and using it to examine the network.
• Tools that a hacker may employ during the scanning phase can include dialers, port scanners, network mappers, sweepers, and vulnerability scanners.
• Hackers extract information such as live machines, ports, port status, OS details, device type, system uptime, etc. to launch the attack.

Gaining Access :-

• Gaining access refers to the point where the attacker obtains access to the operating system or applications on the computer or network.
• The attacker can gain access at the operating system level, application level, or the network level.
• After scanning, the hacker designs the blueprint of the network of the target with the help of data collected during Phase 1 and Phase 2.
• This is the phase where the real hacking takes place. Vulnerabilities discovered during the reconnaissance and scanning phase are now exploited to gain access.
• The method of connection the hacker uses for an exploit can be a local area network (LAN, either wired or wireless), local access to a PC, the Internet, or offline.
• Examples include stack based buffer overflows, password cracking, denial of service (DoS), and session hijacking.
• Gaining access is known in the hacker world as owning the system.

Maintaining Access :-

• Maintaining access refers to the phase when the attacker tries to retain his/her ownership of the system.
• Once a hacker has gained access, they want to keep that access for future exploitation and attacks.
• Sometimes, hackers harden the system from other hackers or security personnel by securing their exclusive access with backdoors, rootkits, and Trojans.
• Once the hacker owns the system, they can use it as a base to launch additional attacks. Attackers can upload,  download, or manipulate data, applications, and configuration on the owned system.
• In this case, the owned system is sometimes referred to as a zombie system.

Clearing / Covering Tracks :-

• Covering tracks refers to the activities carried out by attacker to hide malicious acts.
• The attacker's intention include : continuing access to victim's system, remaining unnoticed and uncaught, deleting the evidence that might lead to his prosecution.
• The attacker overwrites the server, system, and application logs to avoid suspicion.
• Once hackers have been able to gain and maintain access, they cover their tracks to avoid detection by security personnel, to continue to use the owned system, to remove evidence of hacking, or to avoid legal action.
• Hackers try to remove all traces of the attack, such as log files or intrusion detection system (IDS) alarms.
• Examples of activities during this phase of the attack include steganography, the use of tunneling protocols, and altering log files.

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Cybercrime and Ethical Hacking

What is Cybercrime?

Cybercrime is the use of computers and networks to perform illegal activities such as spreading computer viruses, online bullying, performing unauthorized electronic fund transfers etc.  Most cybercrimes are committed through the internet. Some cybercrimes can also be carried out using mobile phones via SMS and online chatting applications.

Types of Cybercrime

The following list presents the common types of cybercrimes :

• Computer fraud : Intentional deception for personal gain via the use of computer systems.
• Privacy violation : Exposing personal information such as email addresses, phone number, account details etc. on social media, websites etc.
• Identity Theft : Stealing personal information from somebody and impersonating that person.
• Sharing copyrighted files/information : This involves distributing copyright protected files such as eBooks and computer programs etc.
• Electronic funds transfer : This involves gaining an un-authorized access to bank computer networks and making illegal fund transfers.
• ATM Fraud:This involves intercepting ATM card details such as account number and PIN numbers. These details are then used to withdraw funds from the intercepted accounts.
• Denial of Service Attacks:This involves the use of computers in multiple locations to attack servers with a view of shutting them down.
• Spam:Sending unauthorized emails. These emails usually contain advertisements.

What is ethical hacking?

Ethical hacking is identifying weakness in computer systems and/or computer networks and coming with counter measures that protect the weaknesses. Ethical hackers must abide by the following rules.

• Get written permission from the owner of the computer system and/or computer network before hacking.
• Protect the privacy of the organization been hacked.
• Transparently report all the identified weaknesses in the computer system to the organization.
• Inform hardware and software vendors of the identified weaknesses.

Why ethical hacking?

• Information is one of the most valuable assets of an organization. Keeping information secure can protect an organization’s image and save an organization a lot of money.
• Hacking can lead to loss of business for organizations that deal in finance such as PayPal. Ethical hacking puts them a step ahead of the cyber criminals who would otherwise lead to loss of business.

Legality of ethical hacking

Ethical hacking is legal if the hacker abides by the rules stipulated in the above section on the definition of ethical hacking. The International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC-Council) provides a certification program that tests individual’s skills. Those who pass the examination are awarded with certificates. The certificates are supposed to be renewed after some time.

Summary

• Hacking is identifying and exploiting weaknesses in computer systems and/or computer networks.
• Cybercrime is committing crime with the aid of computers and information technology infrastructure.
• Ethical hacking is about improving the security of computer systems and/or computer networks.
• Ethical hacking is legal.

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Types of Hackers

So far we have seen the basics of hacking and the terms associated with hacking. Now its time to go through the categories of the hackers.

Hackers are classified according to the intent of their actions. The following list classifies hackers according to their intent

• Script Kiddie - Script Kiddies normally don’t care about hacking (if they did, they’d be Green Hats. See below.). They copy code and use it for a virus or an SQLi or something else. Script Kiddies will never hack for themselves; they’ll just download overused software (LOIC or Metasploit, for example) and watch a YouTube video on how to use it. A common Script Kiddie attack is DoSing or DDoSing (Denial of Service and Distributed Denial of Service), in which they flood an IP with so much information it collapses under the strain. This attack is frequently used by the “hacker” group Anonymous, which doesn’t help anyone’s reputation.

• White Hat (Ethical Hacker) - White Hat hackers are the good guys of the hacker world. They’ll help you remove a virus or PenTest a company. Most White Hat hackers hold a college degree in IT security or computer science and must be certified to pursue a career in hacking. The most popular certification is the CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker) from the EC-Council

• Black Hat (Crackers) - Black Hat Hackers are the bad guys of the hacker world. These are the men and women you hear about in the news. They find banks or other companies with weak security and steal money or credit card information. The surprising truth about their methods of attack is that they often use common hacking practices they learned early on.

• Gray Hat - Nothing is ever just black or white; the same is true in the world of hacking. Gray Hat hackers don’t steal money or information (although, sometimes they deface a website or two), yet they don’t help people for good (but, they could if they wanted to). These hackers comprise most of the hacking world, even though Black Hat hackers gain most (if not all) of the media’s attention. These are the guys who do all the illegal things legally.

• Green Hat - These are the hacker “n00bz”, but unlike Script Kiddies, they care about hacking and strive to become full-blown hackers. They’re often flamed by the hacker community for asking many basic questions. When their questions are answered, they’ll listen with the intent and curiosity of a child listening to family stories. In short, they are the one who don't have complete knowledge but their only aim is to become a complete hacker one day.

• Red Hat - These are the vigilantes of the hacker world. They’re like White Hats in that they halt Black Hats, but these folks are downright SCARY to those who have ever tried so much as PenTest. Instead of reporting the malicious hacker, they shut him/her down by uploading viruses, DoSing and accessing his/her computer to destroy it from the inside out. They leverage multiple aggressive methods that might force a cracker to need a new computer. In short, they protect the world from Black Hats though illegally. Its like stopping criminals by killing them.

• Blue Hat - If a Script Kiddie took revenge, he/she might become a Blue Hat. Blue Hat hackers will seek vengeance on those who’ve them angry. Most Blue Hats are n00bz, but like the Script Kiddies, they have no desire to learn.

• Hacktivist - A hacker who use hacking to send social, religious, and political etc. messages. This is usually done by hijacking websites and leaving the message on the hijacked website.

• Phreaker - A hacker who identifies and exploits weaknesses in telephones instead of computers. 

The most of media attention is captured by Black Hats. They don't need respect from public, instead they want fame. While White Hats get the most respect from public, but they don't get fame. The Red Hats are the ones who should be given both - respect and fame, but they remain hidden instead. And at last, something interesting and surprising about the Hackers' World - The Script Kiddies get the least respect but are most annoying and dangerous and can cause big problems without actually knowing what they are doing. Script Kiddies have minimum skills but are the most dangerous.

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Essential Terminology

As this is a step-by-step guide, I prefer the viewers to see my pervious posts..

The following are some essential terminologies in field of hacking that one should be aware of :-

• Threat - An action or event that might prejudice security. A threat is a potential violation of security. A threat is a possible danger that can exploit an existing vulnerability to
  cause possible harm.
• Vulnerability - Existence of a weakness, design, implementation error or logical fault that can lead to an unexpected undesirable event compromising the security of the system.
• Attack - An assault on system security that derives from an intelligent threat. An attack is any action that attempts to or violates security.
• Exploit - An exploit is a defined way (piece of software, set of commands etc.) that takes advantage of an existing vulnerability to breach the security of an IT system.

Attacks can be broadly classified into two types :-

• Active attacks : Active attacks are those that modify the target system or message.
• Passive attacks : Passive attacks are those that violate the confidentiality without affecting the state of the system.

Some other terminologies :-

• Payload - It is the part of an explicit code that performs the intended malicious action, such as destroying, creating backdoors, and hijacking computers.
• Zero-Day attack - Understanding the term on time basis, we can also call this an instant attack. It is an attack that exploits computer application vulnerabilities before the software developer releases a patch for the vulnerability.
• Daisy Chaining - It involves gaining access to one network and/or computer and then using the same information to gain access to multiple networks and computer that contain desired information.
• Doxing - Publishing personally identifiable information about an individual collected from publicly available database and social media.
• Bot - A BOT is a software application that can be controlled remotely to execute or automate predefined tasks.

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Introduction

I bet most of you are really excited to get started. But, before we actually move on to learning how to hack, let us begin to understand what hacking really means.

Computers have become mandatory to run a successful businesses. It is not enough to have isolated computers systems; they need to be networked (connected to each other via LAN cables, WiFi-Hostpots) to facilitate communication with external businesses. This exposes them to the outside world and cybercrime. Cybercrime is using computers to commit illegal acts such as fraud, privacy invasion, stealing corporate/personal data etc. Cybercrimes cost many organizations millions of dollars every year. Businesses need to protect themselves against such attacks.

WHAT IS HACKING?

In the field of computer security, hacking simply refers to the act of exploiting the weakness that exists in a computer system or a computer network.

In other words, a hacker is someone who has developed a deeper interest in understanding how the computer system or the software program works, so that he can take control of the computer by exploiting any of the existing vulnerabilities in it. Hackers are usually skilled computer programmers with knowledge of computer security.

Hacking is just opposite to Cyber Security where the experts work to protect servers from being taken down. Both the fields are related to Networking and Security in Computer Communications.

Hacker - A Traditional vs. Modern Definition

Hacker is a word that has two meanings:

1. Traditionally, a Hacker is someone who likes to play with Software or Electronic Systems. Hackers enjoy Exploring and Learning how Computer systems operate. They love discovering new ways to work electronically.
2. Recently, Hacker has taken on a new meaning — someone who maliciously breaks into systems for personal gain.

Technically, these criminals are Crackers as Criminal Hackers. Crackers break into systems with malicious intentions. They do it for Personal gain, Fame, Profit and even Revenge. They Modify, Delete and Steal critical information, often making other people's life miserable.

Now-a-days, media considers every Hacker a Criminal but that's not the reality. A Hacker may be good or bad. One cannot simply attach the word 'criminal' with a 'hacker'.

Hacking

Hacking has a lot of meanings depending upon the person’s knowledge and his work intentions. Hacking is an Art as well as a Skill. Hacking is the knowledge by which one gets to achieve his Goals, anyhow, using his Skills and Power.

Most people associate Hacking with breaking law, therefore calling all those guys who engage in hacking activities to be criminals. We agree that there are people out there who use hacking techniques to break the law, but hacking is not really about that. In fact, hacking is more about following the law and performing the steps within the limits.

How to become a Hacker?

A hacker is the person who is interested in computer systems -software/hardware and tries to learn and use every possible trick on the system to make it break/efficient.

Who said that to become a hacker, you need to break security and hack websites!! You can become a hacker if you are interested and you learn new things about it. You start with learning small tricks. And you are hacker if you can implement those tricks for good/bad.

Now from today itself start to think like a hacker - Think out side to box ... on what ever you people do...

In any situation in your life, if you get into a problem, try to solve it and never submit yourself to the problem.

This is the short introduction about Hacking.. Comment your views about the article. Thank you..!

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