Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Cracking An Act Different From Hacking
Chapter 2: Malware: A Hackers Henchman
Chapter 3: Computer Virus: Most Common Malware
Chapter 4: IT Security
Conclusion
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Introduction
Hacking is a word which the world thinks illegitimate. However, that is not true. A person who hacks doesnt necessarily have to be a thief. As long as it is harmless, hacking is fun.
Hacking is fine if youre looking to quench your curiosity. The person, who secures data, be it from an organization or a mere personal computer is also a hacker. Many companies recruit hackers to their official team for safeguarding their data and enhancing their security. As surprising as it is, one can make a good career with hacking. Hackers can also freelance as a contract hacker for a limited period of time, which allows them work with different companies.
Many multi-national companies (MNC) hire professional hackers, however, it is important to keep it ethical and not give in to the darker side of hacking. People also have the wrong impression that hacking is only meant for highly skilled computer geniuses known as coders. Hacking isnt limited to techies but also can be done by anyone who wishes to protect their information from others.
There are several topics one could cover under hacking with several books which cover them right from the basics to the professional details. However, this book is targeted at the beginners who arent well-versed with the basics of hacking. This book mainly focuses on understanding of the important concepts in hacking like cracking, malware, viruses and IT security.
This book also deals with the concepts in ethical hacking with which you can secure your data the crowd of unethical hackers. I hope you find this book informative and I want you to thank you for choosing this book.
Have a good read!
Chapter 1: Cracking An Act Different From Hacking
In this chapter, youll learn about cracking and how it differs from hacking.
Cracking
Cracking can be defined as an act of breaking into a computer. It is usually done on a secured network. There can be a number of reasons for a cracker to crack into a computer like for entertainment purposes, for his/her profit, or as a challenge. Some crackers do it for pointing out a websites security flaws. They break and enter into a site and report to the administration of the website about the security flaw.
For a person to perform cracking, strong hacking skills arent a necessity. You can be a cracker with the help of some popular tools which are used on known flaws in the site's security. With these tools, anyone can crack by searching for known weaknesses of certain websites. So, you can assume that most of the crackers are not professionals but are just mediocre level hackers. Hacking and cracking are two different terms and one should not be confused with the other.
Cracker
A cracker can be defined as a person who, without permission, breaks into a persons computer on a network. They intentionally break into the computer breaching the security of the system. They bypass passwords and compromise the license of the programs in the computer.
Hacking vs. Cracking
Both hacking and cracking are two different forms of computer security breaches on the internet. As the pronunciation of these words is similar, most people get confused between the two words. But you should keep in mind that both are malicious cyber activities. Listed here are the differences between these two activities. We'll start by looking at the meanings of those words in a technical vocabulary.
Hacking is defined as an act of forcibly retrieving or stealing data that could be either personal or private. This is done without the knowledge of the owner. Hacking also includes stealing of passwords or any other malicious action which disturbs the privacy of a person without their consent or knowledge.
Cracking, on the other hand, is creating original programs and using them for personal purposes. With cracking you can edit source codes of a given program or even create your own programs which can be used for breaching the security of a program or a system. Programs like key generators and patches are all part of cracking. These programs will trick the software application into thinking that a process occurred.
For example if you use a key-generation software, it will trick the application to think that the key entered is a licensed key and it will also stop the application from verifying it with the server. In simple words, cracking is nothing but searching for a backdoor entry into the software. It involves security breach and exploitation of the software.
If you observe, you can see that a hacker is someone who uses his extensive knowledge on programming and code for illegal and malicious purposes while a cracker is one who exploits a program and searches for backdoor entries. Cracking is usually a lot less harmful when compared to hacking. But one should not get an impression that cracking is of no harm at all. Hackers usually deal with internet hacking. For example, hackers use several techniques and tools for password lifting, stealing data and other things which harm the victim's privacy.
The difference is simple. One of them is more malicious than the other. When compared to hackers, crackers normally have a good knowledge on programming languages like .NET and Python. On the other hand, hackers are usually fluent with languages like JavaScript, MySQL, CSS, HTML, Ajax and PHP.
Password cracking
Password cracking can be considered as the process of recovering passwords. It can be done by recovering data from a secured location or from the data transmitted by a computer system. Brute force attack is one of the commonly known approaches for password cracking. It is a program which continuously guesses the password within the given password hash (cryptographic hash).