4 Steps To Become A True Hacker

You might find dozens of ways on the internet which tells you how you can be a hacker but none of them actually prove of much help. There are many factors but the most important thing towards becoming and hacker is that you must have the right attitude, curiosity and patience to learn. The hackers that you hear about, did not become what they are now overnight, it was years of patient practice that made them successful.

So this article will reveal you the four steps to becoming a great hacker.

1. Learn to program in C & other programming languages:

Programming of course is the fundamental hacking skill that one must learn. If you don’t know any programming language then I strongly recommend you to start learning one.

You must start learning C programming language as it is one of the most powerful programming languages. It was used to write the popular UNIX operating system. C is very efficient and it spares your machine resources. Write your own C programs to check your skill level.

After learning C programming language, you to learn a second programming language. I would suggest you to learn Python programming language as it is cleanly designed, well documented and relatively easier. But you must remember that Python programming language is not just a toy; it is very powerful and flexible, and best suited for large programs.

Do keep in mind that you won’t reach the skill level of a hacker or even a programmer just by learning programming languages. You need to be able to learn how to think about programming a problem in general way. This can be achieved by a lot of practice.

The other programming languages you can also learn are Perl, Lisp, Java, C++, etc.

A collection of textbooks on various programming languages

Resources to learn C programming language :

Download Code::Blocks

Download E-Books on C Programming

2. Learn Operating Systems:

Assuming that you have your own personal computer or can get access to one. The most important step you can take towards learning hacking skills to get a copy of open-source LINUX operating system(or any other  UNIX based OS), install it on your PC and run it.

There are many other operating systems other than LINUX but they are distributed in binary –you can’t read the code and you can’t modify it.

A screenshot captured while hacking using Kali Linux

Trying to learn hacking on Microsoft Windows operating system or other closed-source OS is like trying to dance while wearing a sack on your lower body. It’s almost useless and less fruitful.

UNIX is the operating system of the Internet; the servers are based running on UNIX, it’s not possible to learn Internet hacking without proper knowledge of UNIX.

Resources for LINUX OS:

Download LINUX OS

Downloads E-Books on LINUX OS

3. Learn Internet & Networking:

It is essential to master the networking concepts to become a hacker. Understand how the networks are created and differentiate between different types of network.

As mentioned in earlier posts, hacking is all about using your knowledge to exploit vulnerabilities thus having a clear understanding of TCP/IP and UDP protocols is must. This will help you in exploiting the vulnerabilities on the Internet.

Also learn what is LAN, WAN, VPN, routers, subnet, etc. The networking command to do a HTTP request must be on your fingertips. HTTP is a gateway through which one enters the world of Internet, so you must have crystal clear knowledge about it in order to break the barriers. This gateway can be used to breach security of a system and control it.

However, start from the networking basics. You must also learn HTML-The Language of Internet, the pages that you see are loaded with HTML codes, with the knowledge of HTML you can easily know what is behind a webpage.

Resources for Internet and Networking:

Download E-Books on Networking

4. Learn functional English:

This might sound weird but it’s true. If English is your first language its well and good but if it’s your second language you have a problem. Learn English language because English language has large pool of technical words as compared to other language hence it is used as standard language for all the computer programming languages. You can’t afford to make mistakes in your programming.

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Hacking & Hackers : Defining and undestanding them.

This article is to provide you with an insight of what hacking is, what hacker means and what a hacker does.

Hacking can be thought as an art of exploiting the computers in motivation to gain access to the unauthorised information.

I would refer a hacker to be someone with an advanced knowledge of computer systems and computer networks who uses his skills to seek and exploit weaknesses in computer systems a computer networks.

Hacker is not a negative term as it is considered now, an original hacker must have a positive intention to learn about the computer system they are exploiting, but not to destroy them or steal the valuable information. A hacker should embrace learning how the computer system works, their flaws, their strengths and interesting functions of the system’s design.

If you want to learn hacking then you must get these three basic hacking ethics crammed in your head:

1. Do not make any damage to the system.

2. Make no one pay for your actions.

3. Get permission to carry out the hack on the system from the owner.

The hackers are classified into spectrum of different categories, such as white hat, grey hat, black hat, elite hacker, script kiddie, hacktivist. Let’s now study each of them in a brief detail:

1. White hat – Such hackers break into systems for non-malicious purposes, perhaps to test the security of their own systems or while for a company. The term “white-hat” is internet slang for ethical hacker. These hackers perform penetration testing and vulnerability assessments. Some greatest white hat are Linus Trovalds, Steve Wozniak.

Linus Trovalds

Steve Wozniak

2. Black hat – Such hackers break into secure systems for malicious purposes, to destroy, modify or steal data or to make the system/network unusable for who are authorized to use them. The “black-hat” is also known as crackers in the security industry. Some popular black-hat groups of the present times are Lizard Squad & LulzSec.

Logo of LulzSec

Logo of Lizard Squad

3. Grey hat – Such hackers lies between a black hat & white hat. A grey hat may break into a system for the sole purpose of notifying the administrator of that system that their system has a defect. He may sometimes charge a fee to patch the defect.

4. Elite hackers – Such hackers exploit systems to gain a social status, an elite refers to the most skilled. All the latest exploits and vulnerability circulates around these elite hackers. The most popular elite hackers are Masters of Deception.

John Lee from MOD

Mark Abene from MOD

5. Script kiddie – Such hackers are unskilled and they use automated tools written by other hackers (usually other black hat) in order to break into systems. These type of hackers have little or no understanding of the underlying concepts of hacking.

6. Hacktivist – Such hackers hack for a cause, either to publicize a social, religious, ideological or a political message. One of the greatest hacktivist group of present time are The Anonymous.

Logo of Anonymous

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History of Hacking

Hacking, one of the most fascinating word that we know.
But how did it all begin?
Let's read through this and find out.

It was in 1960s at Massachusetts Institute of Technology that some of the MIT train enthusiasts hacked their train sets how they work. These devout programmers used their expertise to modify programs for optimization and to use them for specific applications.

1970s saw boom of another type of hackers called "phreakers" emerged, they mainly exploited the newly built electronic telephone networks to make long distance free calls(the calls were costly during that generation). The most popular phreakers were Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, both later founded Apple Inc.

Steve Jobs(L) & Steve Wozniak(R) working together in 1976

Steve Wozniak phreaking with the help of BlueBox (L) & A typical BlueBox(R)

1980s : The hacking started getting popular among the masses due to introduction of personal computers and this provided a lot more to be explored. The 80s saw formation of famous hacker group Legion of Doom which remained active till early 2000s. In 1988 "Robert Tapan Morris" created the Morris Worm considered the first computer worm on the Internet and subsequently becoming the first person convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. In 1989 "Herbert Zinn" becomes the first juvenile convicted under the Computer Fraud Act for hacking into computer systems at AT&T, government offices thus stealing sophisticated software worth $1 million.

Robert Tappan Morris(Left)
"Morris Worm" source-code is now displayed at The Computer History Museum(Right)

Arrest warrant for Kevin Mitnick dated 10th November, 1992

1990s : This decade was know as Golden Era Of Hacking due to the invention of World Wide Web. In 1992 a gang of phreakers Masters Of Deception were nabbed down with proof. Later in 1995 Kevin Mitnick, probably the world’s most prolific and best known hacker, is arrested and charged with obtaining unauthorized access to computers belonging to numerous computer software and computer operating systems manufacturers, cellular telephone manufacturers, Internet Service Providers, and educational institutions; and stealing, copying, and misappropriating proprietary computer software from Motorola, Fujitsu, Nokia, Sun, Novell, and NEC. Mitnick was also in possession of 20,000 credit card numbers. And in the same year Christopher Pile was the first person jailed for writing and distributing a computer virus. In 1997 a freeware named AOHell, it allowed script kiddies to wreak havoc on AOL was released. In 1998 the twin brothers Hao Jinglong and Hao Jingwen were sentenced to death by a court in China for stealing ~$87,000 from a bank.

2000s : This decade saw sophisticated hacking. In 2000 Onel De Guzman wrote a worm named I LOVE YOU in VBScript which affected around 45 million computers and caused damage worth $25 billion. In 2001 the tech giant Microsoft saw new type of hacking attack called Denial of Service(DoS), this is one of the most popular hacking attack now. 2003 saw the formation of the greatest hacktivist group The Anonymous. This decade saw most of hacking attacks. In 2008 around 20 Chinese hackers claim to have gained access to the world's most sensitive sites, including The Pentagon.

Onel De Guzman, creator of ILOVEYOU virus

2010s : This decade saw boom of social networking sites and the hacking attacks increased. This decade due to high impact of internet saw more cybercrimes and more experiments. In 2011 LulzSec, a black-hat hacker group was formed which claims responsibility for Sony Picture hacking and an elite hacker sl1nk releases information of his penetration in the servers of the Department of Defense (DoD), Pentagon, NASA, NSA, US Military, other UK government websites. In 2012 a Saudi hacker 0xOmar, published over 400,000 credit cards online and threatened to release 1 million credit cards online. In 2013 two FBI web servers hacked by a Japanese hacker named Daisuke Dan and there were several attacks on Instagram using new vulnerabilities like Heartbleed, Shellcode and XSRF.

Keep on reading to find out the new things going to happen in future.
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