An Overview of Hacking

To your average computer user who doesn’t understand much about Internet and network security,

hackers are shrouded in a cloud of mystery. 

Most people don’t understand what they do or how they do it. And the movies don’t help to demystify them, either. 

Countless action movies portray a character that takes the role of a hacker that can break into top secret computer systems to save the world. When the camera pans over their computer screens, you see them typing strange letters and numbers into a command prompt that, for all you know, is a foreign language. Humorously enough, the hackers in the movies frequently use a tool called NMAP, . 

If you’ve seen The Matrix Reloaded, Dredd, Fantastic Four, Bourne Ultimatum, Die Hard 4, or The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (among countless others), you have already seen actors using NMAP to facilitate their hacking endeavors in the movies. 

 But what exactly is hacking?

Hacking means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. It is an umbrella term used to describe hundreds, 

if not thousands, of various techniques that can be utilized to use computers and information systems in unintended ways. At its core, hacking means using a computer to gain unauthorized access to another computer system or data that is protected or restricted. This is the most conventional meaning of the word hacking. Once a hacker has gained access to an unauthorized system, he or she then has the ability to steal information, change configurations, alter information, delete information, and install further malicious code to capture even greater control over the target system. The list goes on and the sky is the limit regarding what an experienced hacker can do once they find a way into a computer system.

However, there is a lot more to hacking than clicking a button to attack a computer. You will need to use tools and scanners to map the local network

topology and use reconnaissance techniques to gather information and look for vulnerabilities. The good news for newbies is that these tools are highly automated today. In the past, hacking software hadn’t been created that aggregated vast amounts of code and tools into simple and easy to use commands. As such, hackers in the past needed highly intimate understandings of the technologies they were trying to break and it was difficult to do so. Having an extremely deep understanding of technology today will certainly help you become a better hacker, but my point is that these tools are becoming increasingly easy to use. In fact, there are young kids and teenagers that are too curious for their own good and take advantage of highly sophisticated tools to break into systems they have no business accessing. Understand that these tools simplify the hacking process considerably. If a teenager can hack into a system using simple tools, guess what? You can too! 

But what does it take to excel as a hacker?

 Well, most hackers have several things in common. First of all, they are experienced software developers and can craft malicious programs and viruses that further their cause. Furthermore, most hackers are competent Linux users. Linux operating systems are extremely secure and provide virtually limitless access to the latest penetration and security tools – for free! In addition, some Linux operating systems such as Kali Linux were designed for the sole purpose of hacking and network penetration. Linux can be scary for newbies, but I will show you how to run Linux and use some special tools later in this book in a simplified and easy to understand manner. Lastly, hackers almost always have a working knowledge of networking topics such as IP addresses, ports, and the dirty details of how different networking protocols operate. Some tools even exploit vulnerabilities in these network protocols, and the knowledge of these exploits combined with the ability to craft computer programs is what makes some hackers truly formidable.