Hacking,The Art of Exploitation

The first thing you have to bear in mind before you start reading this article is that I am writing this post only for Educational purpose. Secondly, some of the facts that I used in the post are from the book named The Hacker Underground. Thirdly, I am not a hacker yet and Learning is Endless. Enjoy the post, peace!

What is a hacker?

A hacker is someone who likes to tinker with electronics or computer systems. Hackers like to explore and learn how computer systems work, finding ways to make them do what they do better, or do things they were not intended to do. There are two types of hackers:

White Hat - These are considered the good guys. White hat hackers don’t use their skills for illegal purposes. They usually become Computer Security experts and help protect people from the Black Hats.

Black Hat - These are considered the bad guys. Black hat hackers usually use their skills maliciously for personal gain. They are the people that hack banks, steal credit cards, and deface websites.

Grey Hat - A grey hat hacker is a combination of a Black Hat and a White Hat Hacker.

These two terms came from the old western movies where the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black hats.

Now if you’re thinking, “Oh boy! Being a black hat sounds awesome!”, Then I have a question for you. Does it sound cool to live in a cell the size of your bathroom and be someone’s butt buddy for many years? That’s what I thought.

Hacker Hierarchy

Script kiddies – These are the wannabe hackers. They are looked down upon in the hacker community because they are the people that make hackers look bad. Script kiddies usually have no hacking skills and use the tools developed by other hackers without any knowledge of what’s happening behind the scenes.

Intermediate hackers – These people usually know about computers, networks, and have enough programming knowledge to understand relatively what a script might do, but like the script kiddies they use pre-developed well-known exploits (- a piece of code that takes advantage of a bug or vulnerability in a piece of software that allows you to take control of a computer system) to carry out attacks

Elite Hackers – These are the skilled hackers. They are the ones that write the many hacker tools and exploits out there. They can break into systems and hide their tracks or make it look like someone else did it. You should strive to eventually reach this level. 

Now, you see clearly who and what the hackers are. I am going to write a post about how to keep your passwords strong and difficult to be hacked by using hacking tools. So, see you in next post.

Thanks

Thet Htoo Zaw(17810)