L5 understanding hacking

Rushdi Shams, Lecturer, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh

1

the term hacker simply referred to an adept computer user, and gurus still use the term to refer to themselves in that original sense.

when breaking into computer systems (technically known as cracking) became popular, the media used the hacker to refer only to computer criminals

Rushdi Shams, Lecturer, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh 2

Hacking is illegal. Title 18, United States Code, Section 1030, by Congress in 1984

the perpetrator must “knowingly” commit the crime

notification that unauthorized access is illegal be posted

For a computer-related crime to become a federal crime, the attacker must be shown to have caused at least $5,000 worth of damage.


2004 CANSPAM Act specifically criminalizes the transmission of unsolicited commercial e-mail without an existing business relationship.

Before that, spamming was not a crime!


Because of the time it takes, there are only two serious types of hackers: › the underemployed and › those hackers being paid by someone to hack.


Hackers fall quite specifically into these categories, in order of increasing threat:› Security experts› Script kiddies› Underemployed adults› Ideological hackers› Criminal hackers› Corporate spies› Disgruntled employees


Most security experts are capable of hacking but decline to do so for moral or economic reasons.

Computer security experts have found that there’s more money in preventing hacking than in perpetrating it

hundreds of former hackers now consult independently as security experts to medium-sized businesses.


Script kiddies are students who hack These hackers may use their own computers, or

(especially at colleges) they may use the more powerful resources of the school to perpetrate their hacks.

joyride through cyberspace looking for targets of opportunity

concerned mostly with impressing their peers and not getting caught.


in most instances, you’ll never know they were there unless you have software that detects unusual activity or unless they make a mistake.

These hackers constitute about 90 percent of the total manual hacking activity on the Internet.

They use the tools produced by others, script kiddies hack primarily to get free stuff They share pirated software and serial numbers


Underemployed adults are former script kiddies either dropped out of school or failed to achieve

full-time employment and family commitments Many of the tools script kiddies use are created

by these adult hackers Adult hackers often create the “crackz” applied

by other hackers to unlock commercial software. This group also writes the majority of the

software viruses.Rushdi Shams, Lecturer, Dept of CSE, KUET, Bangladesh 10

Ideological hackers are those who hack to further some political purpose.

Since the year 2000, ideological hacking has gone from just a few verified cases to an information war

They deface websites or perpetrate DoS attacksagainst their ideological enemies.

looking for mass media coverage of their exploits have the implicit support of their home government


Criminal hackers hack for revenge, to perpetrate theft, or for the sheer satisfaction of causing damage.

exceedingly rare because the intelligence required to hack usually also provides ample opportunity for the individual to find some socially acceptable means of support

little risk to institutions that do not deal in large volumes of computer-based financial transactions


very rare because it’s extremely costly and legally very risky to employ illegal hacking tactics against competing companies

Many high technology businesses are young and naïve about security

Nearly all high-level military spy cases involve individuals who have incredible access to information but as public servants don’t make much money


Disgruntled employees are the most dangerous—and most likely—security problem of all

Attacks range from the complex (a network administrator who spends time reading other people’s e-mail) to the simple (a frustrated clerk who takes a fire axe to your database server).


There are only four ways for a hacker to access your network:

1. By connecting over the Internet2. By using a computer on your network directly3. By dialing in via a Remote Access Service (RAS)

server4. By connecting via a nonsecure wireless network


Solving the direct intrusion problem is easy: Employ strong physical security at your premises treat any cable or connection that leaves the

building as a security concern. putting firewalls between your WAN links and

your internal network or behind wireless links


Put your RAS servers outside your firewall in the public security zone,

force legitimate users to authenticate with your firewall first to gain access to private network resources.

Allow no device to answer a telephone line behind your firewall.


802.11b came with a much-touted built-in encryption scheme called the Wired-Equivalent Privacy (WEP) that promised to allow secure networking with the same security as wired networks have.

It sounded great. Too bad it took less than 11 hours for security

experts to hack it


newer 128-bit WEP service is more secure, but it should still not be considered actually equivalent to wired security


Target selection Information gathering Attack


To pass this stage, some vector of attack must be available, so the machine must have either advertised its presence or have been found through some search activity.› DNS Look-up› Network Address Scanning› Port Address Scanning› Service Scanning


› SNMP Data gathering› Architecture probes› Directory service look-up


Phishing Automated password guessing Buffer overflow MiM Session Hijacking Source Routing Trojan horse Forged e-mails Floods


Technology

L5 understanding hacking