Hackers
Contents
What is a Hacker?
In computer security, the term hacker
refers to a person who exploits computer systems or gain
unauthorized access through skills, tactics, and detailed
knowledge. There are many different definitions for a
hacker, the most common, being a black hat (cyber
criminal). There are also ethical hackers (white
hats, and gray hats).
Terminology
- Hacker:
- Someone with mastery of computers.
- Someone who exploits computers or gain unauthorized
access through skills, tactics, and detailed knowledge.
- Black Hat:
- Someone who cracks through computer security
without authorization, or anyone who has been accused
of using technology (such as computers) for terrorism,
vandalism, fraud, intellectual property theft, destruction
or modification of data (without authorization) and
other forms of crime. This can mean taking control
of a computer using a Trojan
horse, or software cracking. This type
of crime can also be referred to as "cyber
terrorism", or "cyber crime".
- Someone who uses password cracking or bruth
force to gain unauthorized entry to computer
systems, or data.
- Some who works around copy protection mechanisms
in software. This is also known as a software
cracker.
- Hactivist:
- Someone who uses technology to announce a political
message.
- Gray Hat:
- A hacker with ambiguous ethics.
- Script Kiddies:
- A novice hacker (black hat), with little or no skill
with computers; someone who simply follows directions
or a cook-book approach without fully understanding
the meaning of the steps they are performing.
- Someone who uses hacking tools, or source code developed
by other hackers.
- Script Kiddies usually have little or no respect
in the "hacker underground"
- Whitehat:
- A hacker that breaks computer security but for non-malicious
reasons. Most white hats try to work with the manufacturer
or owner to try and help discover and eliminate security
vulnerabilities.
- Someone who designs and programs more secure system.
Different Hacking Attacks and Hacking
Tools
- Trojan Horse:
- A malicious program that is disguised
as legitimate or useful software. (See Trojan
Horse article for more information).
- Viruses:
- A virus is a self-replicating program
that inserts copies of itself inside other executable
programs. A computer virus is similar to a biological
virus. (See Computer
Virus article for more information).
- Worms:
- A self-replicating program similar
to a computer virus. However it does not need another
host file to spread. Computer worms propagate through
file transmission capabilities (email, FTP, P2P, etc.)
found on most computers. (See Computer
Worm article for more information).
- War Dialing:
- The act of using a computer to scan
other computers automatically for accessible modems.
- Vulnerability Scanner:
- A tool used to quickly scan computers
for known exploits.
- Port Scanner:
- A tool used to determine which ports
or "open", and which ports are "closed".
Installing a perimeter firewall can defend
computers from intruders by limiting inbound, and
outbound access.
- Network Sniffer:
- A tool that intercepts data transmitted
over a network.
- Distributed Denial of Service
(DDoS):
- By far one of the most crudest, simplest,
and common hacking attack. A hacker initiates so many
invalid requests to a host that it uses up all its
resources responding to them, and ignores legitimate
requests. This also consumes a lot of bandwidth often
bringing down entire networks.
- Social Engineering:
- Maliciously exploiting the trusting
nature of human beings for important information such
as passwords, or account names. This is one of the
most simplest, and most effective hacking attack.
How to Report a Hacker
Cyber crime is one of the most underreported crimes,
simply because people do not know how to report these
crimes, and to whom to report them to. A good place to
start is a simple Google search. Also here are a few links
to help get you started on reporting a hacker.
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