Ethical Hacking Tutorial

Ethical Hacking Tutorial

Hacking has been a part of computing for almost five decades and it is a very broad discipline, which covers a wide range of topics. The first known event of hacking had taken place in 1960 at MIT and at the same time, the term "Hacker" was originated. In this tutorial, we will take you through the various concepts of Ethical Hacking and explain how you can use them in a real-time environment.

Audience

This tutorial has been prepared for professionals aspiring to learn the basics of Ethical Hacking and make a career as an ethical hacker.

Prerequisites

Before proceeding with this tutorial, you should have a good grasp over all the fundamental concepts of a computer and how it operates in a networked environment.

Hacking has been a part of computing for almost five decades and it is a very broad discipline, which covers a wide range of topics. The first known event of hacking had taken place in 1960 at MIT and at the same time, the term "Hacker" was originated.

Hacking is the act of finding the possible entry points that exist in a computer system or a computer network and finally entering into them. Hacking is usually done to gain unauthorized access to a computer system or a computer network, either to harm the systems or to steal sensitive information available on the computer.

Hacking is usually legal as long as it is being done to find weaknesses in a computer or network system for testing purpose. This sort of hacking is what we call Ethical Hacking.

A computer expert who does the act of hacking is called a "Hacker". Hackers are those who seek knowledge, to understand how systems operate, how they are designed, and then attempt to play with these systems.

Types of Hacking

We can segregate hacking into different categories, based on what is being hacked. Here is a set of examples −

• Website Hacking − Hacking a website means taking unauthorized control over a web server and its associated software such as databases and other interfaces.
• Network Hacking − Hacking a network means gathering information about a network by using tools like Telnet, NS lookup, Ping, Tracert, Netstat, etc. with the intent to harm the network system and hamper its operation.
• Email Hacking − It includes getting unauthorized access on an Email account and using it without taking the consent of its owner.
• Ethical Hacking − Ethical hacking involves finding weaknesses in a computer or network system for testing purpose and finally getting them fixed.
• Password Hacking − This is the process of recovering secret passwords from data that has been stored in or transmitted by a computer system.
• Computer Hacking − This is the process of stealing computer ID and password by applying hacking methods and getting unauthorized access to a computer system.

Advantages of Hacking

Hacking is quite useful in the following scenarios −

• To recover lost information, especially in case you lost your password.
• To perform penetration testing to strengthen computer and network security.
• To put adequate preventative measures in place to prevent security breaches.
• To have a computer system that prevents malicious hackers from gaining access.

Disadvantages of Hacking

Hacking is quite dangerous if it is done with harmful intent. It can cause −

• Massive security breach.
• Unauthorized system access on private information.
• Privacy violation.
• Hampering system operation.
• Denial of service attacks.
• Malicious attack on the system.

Purpose of Hacking

There could be various positive and negative intentions behind performing hacking activities. Here is a list of some probable reasons why people indulge in hacking activities −

• Just for fun
• Show-off
• Steal important information
• Damaging the system
• Hampering privacy
• Money extortion
• System security testing
• To break policy compliance
• Hackers can be classified into different categories such as white hat, black hat, and grey hat, based on their intent of hacking a system. These different terms come from old Spaghetti Westerns, where the bad guy wears a black cowboy hat and the good guy wears a white hat.

  White Hat Hackers

  White Hat hackers are also known as Ethical Hackers. They never intent to harm a system, rather they try to find out weaknesses in a computer or a network system as a part of penetration testing and vulnerability assessments.
  Ethical hacking is not illegal and it is one of the demanding jobs available in the IT industry. There are numerous companies that hire ethical hackers for penetration testing and vulnerability assessments.

  Black Hat Hackers

  Black Hat hackers, also known as crackers, are those who hack in order to gain unauthorized access to a system and harm its operations or steal sensitive information.
  Black Hat hacking is always illegal because of its bad intent which includes stealing corporate data, violating privacy, damaging the system, blocking network communication, etc.

  Grey Hat Hackers

  Grey hat hackers are a blend of both black hat and white hat hackers. They act without malicious intent but for their fun, they exploit a security weakness in a computer system or network without the owner’s permission or knowledge.
  Their intent is to bring the weakness to the attention of the owners and getting appreciation or a little bounty from the owners.

  Miscellaneous Hackers

  Apart from the above well-known classes of hackers, we have the following categories of hackers based on what they hack and how they do it −

  Red Hat Hackers

  Red hat hackers are again a blend of both black hat and white hat hackers. They are usually on the level of hacking government agencies, top-secret information hubs, and generally anything that falls under the category of sensitive information.

  Blue Hat Hackers

  A blue hat hacker is someone outside computer security consulting firms who is used to bug-test a system prior to its launch. They look for loopholes that can be exploited and try to close these gaps. Microsoft also uses the term BlueHat to represent a series of security briefing events.

  Elite Hackers

  This is a social status among hackers, which is used to describe the most skilled. Newly discovered exploits will circulate among these hackers.

  Script Kiddie

  A script kiddie is a non-expert who breaks into computer systems by using pre-packaged automated tools written by others, usually with little understanding of the underlying concept, hence the term Kiddie.

  Neophyte

  A neophyte, "n00b", or "newbie" or "Green Hat Hacker" is someone who is new to hacking or phreaking and has almost no knowledge or experience of the workings of technology and hacking.

  Hacktivist

  A hacktivist is a hacker who utilizes technology to announce a social, ideological, religious, or political message. In general, most hacktivism involves website defacement or denialof-service attacks.
• In this chapter, we will have a brief synopsis of some of the famous Hackers and how they became famous.

  Jonathan James

  

  Jonathan James was an American hacker, illfamous as the first juvenile sent to prison for cybercrime in United States. He committed suicide in 2008 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

  In 1999, at the age of 16, he gained access to several computers by breaking the password of a server that belonged to NASA and stole the source code of the International Space Station among other sensitive information.

  Ian Murphy

  

  Ian Murphy, also known as Captain Zap, at one point of time was having high school students steal computer equipment for him. Ian selfproclaims to have been "the first hacker ever convicted of a crime".

  Ian's career as a master hacker was fabricated in 1986 after he and his unemployed wife decided to form some type of business.

  He has a long history of computer and Internet frauds. One of his favourite games is to forge Email headers and to send out third-party threat letters.

  Kevin Mitnick

  

  Kevin Mitnick is a computer security consultant and author, who infiltrates his clients’ companies to expose their security strengths, weaknesses, and potential loopholes.

  He is the first hacker to have his face immortalized on an FBI "Most Wanted" poster. He was formerly the most wanted computer criminal in the history of United States.

  From the 1970s up until his last arrest in 1995, he skilfully bypassed corporate security safeguards, and found his way into some of the most well-guarded systems such as Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment Corporation, Motorola, Netcom, and Nokia.

  Mark Abene

  

  Mark Abene, known around the world by his pseudonym Phiber Optik, is an information security expert and entrepreneur. He was a high-profile hacker in the 1980s and early 1990s. He was one of the first hackers to openly debate and defend the positive merits of ethical hacking as a beneficial tool to industry.

  His expertise spreads across penetration studies, on-site security assessments, secure code reviews, security policy review and generation, systems and network architecture, systems administration and network management, among many others. His clientele includes American Express, UBS, First USA, Ernst & Young, KPMG and others.

  Johan Helsinguis

  

  Johan Helsingius, better known as Julf, came into the limelight in the 1980s when he started operating the world's most popular anonymous remailer, called penet.fi.

  Johan was also responsible for product development for the first Pan-European internet service provider, Eunet International.

  He is at present, a member of the board of Technologia Incognita, a hackerspace association in Amsterdam, and supports the communication companies worldwide with his cyber knowledge.

  Linus Torvalds

  

  Linus Torvalds is known as one of the best hackers of all time. He rose to fame by creating Linux, the very popular Unix-based operating system. Linux is open source and thousands of developers have contributed to its Kernel. However, Torvalds remains the ultimate authority on what new code is incorporated into the standard Linux kernel. As of 2006, approximately two percent of the Linux kernel was written by Torvalds himself.

  He just aspires to be simple and have fun by making the world’s best operating system. Torvalds has received honorary doctorates from Stockholm University and University of Helsinki.

  Robert Morris

  

  Robert Morris, known as the creator of the Morris Worm, the first computer worm to be unleashed on the Internet. The worm had the capability to slow down computers and make them no longer usable. As a result of this, he was sentenced to three years’ probation, 400 hours of community service and also had to pay a penalty amount of $10,500.

  Morris is currently working as a tenured professor at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

  Gary McKinnon

  

  Gary McKinnon is a renowned systems administrator and hacker. He was famously accused of the “biggest military computer hack of all time”. He had successfully hacked the networks of Army, Air Force, Navy and NASA systems of the United States government.

  In his statements to the media, he has often mentioned that his motivation was only to find evidence of UFOs, antigravity technology, and the suppression of “free energy” that could potentially be useful to the public.

  Kevin Poulsen

  

  Kevin Poulsen, also known as Dark Dante, became famous for his notoriety when he took over all the telephone lines of Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM, guaranteeing that he would be the 102nd caller and win the prize of a Porsche 944 S2.

  Poulsen also drew the ire of FBI, when he hacked into federal computers for wiretap information, for which he had to serve a sentence of five years. He has reinvented himself as a journalist and has carved a niche for himself in this field.
• In this chapter, we will discuss in brief some of famous tools that are widely used to prevent hacking and getting unauthorized access to a computer or network system.

  NMAP

  Nmap stands for Network Mapper. It is an open source tool that is used widely for network discovery and security auditing. Nmap was originally designed to scan large networks, but it can work equally well for single hosts. Network administrators also find it useful for tasks such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime.
  Nmap uses raw IP packets to determine −
  • what hosts are available on the network,
  • what services those hosts are offering,
  • what operating systems they are running on,
  • what type of firewalls are in use, and other such characteristics.
  Nmap runs on all major computer operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

  Metasploit

  Metasploit is one of the most powerful exploit tools. It’s a product of Rapid7 and most of its resources can be found at: www.metasploit.com. It comes in two versions − commercial and free edition. Matasploit can be used with command prompt or with Web UI.
  With Metasploit, you can perform the following operations −
  • Conduct basic penetration tests on small networks
  • Run spot checks on the exploitability of vulnerabilities
  • Discover the network or import scan data
  • Browse exploit modules and run individual exploits on hosts

  Burp Suit

  Burp Suite is a popular platform that is widely used for performing security testing of web applications. It has various tools that work in collaboration to support the entire testing process, from initial mapping and analysis of an application's attack surface, through to finding and exploiting security vulnerabilities.
  Burp is easy to use and provides the administrators full control to combine advanced manual techniques with automation for efficient testing. Burp can be easily configured and it contains features to assist even the most experienced testers with their work.

  Angry IP Scanner

  Angry IP scanner is a lightweight, cross-platform IP address and port scanner. It can scan IP addresses in any range. It can be freely copied and used anywhere. In order to increase the scanning speed, it uses multithreaded approach, wherein a separate scanning thread is created for each scanned IP address.
  Angry IP Scanner simply pings each IP address to check if it’s alive, and then, it resolves its hostname, determines the MAC address, scans ports, etc. The amount of gathered data about each host can be saved to TXT, XML, CSV, or IP-Port list files. With help of plugins, Angry IP Scanner can gather any information about scanned IPs.

  Cain & Abel

  Cain & Abel is a password recovery tool for Microsoft Operating Systems. It helps in easy recovery of various kinds of passwords by employing any of the following methods −
  • sniffing the network,
  • cracking encrypted passwords using Dictionary, Brute-Force and Cryptanalysis attacks,
  • recording VoIP conversations,
  • decoding scrambled passwords,
  • recovering wireless network keys,
  • revealing password boxes,
  • uncovering cached passwords and analyzing routing protocols.
  Cain & Abel is a useful tool for security consultants, professional penetration testers and everyone else who plans to use it for ethical reasons.

  Ettercap

  Ettercap stands for Ethernet Capture. It is a network security tool for Man-in-the-Middle attacks. It features sniffing of live connections, content filtering on the fly and many other interesting tricks. Ettercap has inbuilt features for network and host analysis. It supports active and passive dissection of many protocols.
  You can run Ettercap on all the popular operating systems such as Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

  EtherPeek

  EtherPeek is a wonderful tool that simplifies network analysis in a multiprotocol heterogeneous network environment. EtherPeek is a small tool (less than 2 MB) that can be easily installed in a matter of few minutes.
  EtherPeek proactively sniffs traffic packets on a network. By default, EtherPeek supports protocols such as AppleTalk, IP, IP Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), NetWare, TCP, UDP, NetBEUI, and NBT packets.

  SuperScan

  SuperScan is a powerful tool for network administrators to scan TCP ports and resolve hostnames. It has a user friendly interface that you can use to −
  • Perform ping scans and port scans using any IP range.
  • Scan any port range from a built-in list or any given range.
  • View responses from connected hosts.
  • Modify the port list and port descriptions using the built in editor.
  • Merge port lists to build new ones.
  • Connect to any discovered open port.
  • Assign a custom helper application to any port.

  QualysGuard

  QualysGuard is an integrated suite of tools that can be utilized to simplify security operations and lower the cost of compliance. It delivers critical security intelligence on demand and automates the full spectrum of auditing, compliance and protection for IT systems and web applications.
  QualysGuard includes a set of tools that can monitor, detect, and protect your global network.

  WebInspect

  WebInspect is a web application security assessment tool that helps identify known and unknown vulnerabilities within the Web application layer.
  It can also help check that a Web server is configured properly, and attempts common web attacks such as parameter injection, cross-site scripting, directory traversal, and more.

  LC4

  LC4 was formerly known as L0phtCrack. It is a password auditing and recovery application. It is used to test password strength and sometimes to recover lost Microsoft Windows passwords, by using dictionary, brute-force, and hybrid attacks.
  LC4 recovers Windows user account passwords to streamline migration of users to another authentication system or to access accounts whose passwords are lost.

  LANguard Network Security Scanner

  LANguard Network Scanner monitors a network by scanning connected machines and providing information about each node. You can obtain information about each individual operating system.
  It can also detect registry issues and have a report set up in HTML format. For each computer, you can list the netbios name table, current logged-on user, and Mac address.

  Network Stumbler

  Network stumbler is a WiFi scanner and monitoring tool for Windows. It allows network professionals to detect WLANs. It is widely used by networking enthusiasts and hackers because it helps you find non-broadcasting wireless networks.
  Network Stumbler can be used to verify if a network is well configured, its signal strength or coverage, and detect interference between one or more wireless networks. It can also be used to non-authorized connections.

  ToneLoc

  ToneLoc stands for Tone Locator. It was a popular war dialling computer program written for MS-DOS in the early 90’s. War dialling is a technique of using a modem to automatically scan a list of telephone numbers, usually dialling every number in a local area code.
  Malicious hackers use the resulting lists in breaching computer security - for guessing user accounts, or locating modems that might provide an entry-point into computer or other electronic systems.
  It can be used by security personnel to detect unauthorized devices on a company’s telephone network.