What is Hacking?
Hacking refers to identifying weaknesses in networks or computer systems and then exploiting its weaknesses to gain access. To run a successful business, computers have now become mandatory. Having isolated computers is just not enough; they will have to be networked to simplify communication with external businesses. This indeed exposes them to the outside world and hacking. Hacking thus means using computers to execute fraudulent acts like privacy invasion, stealing personal/corporate, etc. Hence, it is essential for businesses to protect themselves against such hacking attacks.
Types of Hackers
Some of the common types of hackers are as follows:
• Ethical hackers
These hackers are also known as white hat hackers who do not illegally break into a computer’s network. Instead, they perform a number of tests in order to check the efficiency of their company’s security systems. Ethical hacking is done without any personal or profit motive. Computer security software manufacturers are those who mostly carry out this particular attack. They are considered to be the only line of defense between a black hat hacker and a company.
• Black hat hackers
Unlike the white hat hackers, these black hat hackers execute just the opposite in both methodology and intention. After gaining access into a network, they only focus on corrupting data for their own personal gain. They then share the information with other hackers to take advantage of the same vulnerabilities.
• Blue hat hackers
Security companies call them to check for vulnerabilities in their system. Prior to launching a new product, companies will hire these rouge hackers for testing their system.
• Grey Hat Hackers
These hackers possess properties of both black and white hat hackers. They generally scan the internet to observe flaws in a network. Next, they will hack into them and show the flaws to their administrator, thus seeking adequate compensation.
• Intelligence Agencies
These hackers safeguard the national systems from foreign threats.
• Organized Crime
This is a particular group of black hat hackers who try to find their own personal gain by exposing computer systems.
• Hacktivists
These hackers hack to advance social causes like politics, religion, or personal beliefs. Their main aim is to embarrass the victim or to deface a website. They come under two categories: right to information and cyber terrorism. The former category refers to the concept of taking confidential information and exposing it to the public because they believe all information is free. The latter category aims at causing widespread fear by destroying a system’s operation and then making it useless in order to advance political motives.
How to Become a Hacker?
The following tips will give you a brief idea on how to become a hacker:
• Learn UNIX
UNIX is a multi-tasking and multi-user computer operating system that has been specifically designed to provide good security to the systems.
• Learn more than one programming language
It is important to learn other modern computer programming languages such as Perl, PHP, JAVA, and Python.
• Learn more than one operating system
Windows operating system is considered to be one of the most commonly compromised systems, hence it is always good to learn how to hack Microsoft systems, which are closed-source systems.
• Become familiar with different networking concepts
It is important that you thoroughly understand TCP/IP and UDP protocol in order to exploit the vulnerabilities on the world wide web.
• Read articles about hacking
From these articles, you will gain insight about hacking and how to develop the attitude to be a hacker.
• Learn to program in C
As the most powerful languages in computer programming, this programming language will help you divide the task in smaller pieces and these pieces can be expressed by a sequence of commands.
• Get to about cryptography
The technology of cryptography and encryption is extremely important for internet and networking. Cryptography is increasingly used in ATM cards, e-commerce, and computer passwords. While hacking, these encrypted codes will have to be broken, and this is called decryption.
• Start by experimenting on your own computers
By initially experimenting on your own computers, you will be able to rectify things if you have done any mistake.
Website hacking can take place by:
- Hacking via online SQL injection
- Hacking with basic HTML coding
• Hacking a website using online SQL injection
The following steps are followed to hack a website using SQL injection:
Step 1
Open google.com by using your system’s Firefox and type in inurl:.php?id= You will see a list of websites with dork php. Click on any of them.
Step 2
Insert an apostrophe at the end of the url to check if the website is vulnerable. If it says, “you have an error in your SQL syntax”, then it indicates that the website is most likely to be vulnerable and hence proceed.
Step 3
Remove the apostrophe and add order by 2—in order to see how many columns the website has and perhaps the most important work you have to do here. Keep testing with 3–, 4–, 5– till you receive a message like “unknown column”.
Step 4
Delete the ‘12 order by‘ and replace with null union all select 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10– After the page loads, you will see a few numbers. Pick the top one. For instance, if it is 7 then replace 7 in the url with @@Version. It will show 5.092 community which is great as it means that the database version is over 5 (fundamentally meaning it can be hacked).
Step 5
Now replace @@version with group_concat(table_name) and after the last number, add from information_schema.tables where table_schema=database()–
Step 6
Replace both tables in the url with a column. You will get all the information the website has. Obtain those interesting to you, for example, username, full name etc. Replace column_name with username,0x3a,pass and replace all the information tags with users–. You will get all the usernames and passwords associated with the website. If it says ‘unknown username and blank list’, it means you have the wrong table, and you will have to go back and look for a different table. It could also mean that you can select another stuff to hack, like the product.
Here, the usernames are displayed first because it comes before the pass in the url.
Step 7
To log in you will have to google admin page finder and then click on the first link. Follow the instructions and get your own admin page finder login. Following this, login with any of the logins you have secured. Click on profile after it logs in and you will find all the details needed.
• How to hack a website via basic HTML coding
If you possess basic HTML and JavaScript knowledge, you might just be able to access websites that are password protected. This last method will present to you easy steps on how to hack less secured websites of your choice through HTML. Remember that this method only works for websites with very low security details.
Step 1
Open the website you need to hack. In its sign-in form, enter wrong username and wrong password combination. You will find an error popup saying wrong username and password.
Step 2
Right-click on that error page> and go to view source.
Step 3
Open and view the source code. There you will see the HTML coding with JavaScript.
- You will find something like this….<_form action=”…Login….”>
- Before this login information copy the URL of the website in which you are.
Step 4
Carefully delete the JavaScript that validates your information on the server. This website can be successfully hacked based on how efficiently you delete the javascript code validating your account information.
Step 5
Go to file>save as>and save it anywhere on your hard disk with ext.html
Step 6
Reopen your target web i.e. ‘chan.html’ file that you earlier saved in your hard disk. You will see a few changes in the current page as compared to the original one. This indeed proves that you are on the right path.
Step 7
Provide any username and password. You have thus successfully cracked a website and entered the account.
Note: All the above steps are for educative purpose. we do not encourage or endorse any type of hacking.