Group 3 Task 2: Hacking

Group 3
Bhaskar Satti
Kumar Vadlamudi
Raghu Rama Raju Kalidindi
Venkatapathi Raju Cherukuwada
Srikanth Dumpala

The hacker mind-set is not confined to this software-hacker culture. There are people who apply the hacker attitude to other things, like electronics or music - actually, you can find it at the highest levels of any science or art. Software hackers recognize these kindred spirits elsewhere and may call them ‘hackers’ too - and some claim that the hacker nature is really independent of the particular medium the hacker works in. But in the rest of this document we will focus on the skills and attitudes of software hackers, and the traditions of the shared culture that originated the term ‘hacker’.

Computer hacking is most common among teenagers and young adults, although there are many older hackers as well. Many hackers are true technology buffs who enjoy learning more about how computers work and consider computer hacking an “art” form. They often enjoy these programming and have expert-level skills in one particular program. For these individuals, computer hacking is a real life application of their problem-solving skills. It’s a chance to demonstrate their abilities, not an opportunity to harm others.

Since a large number of hackers are self-taught prodigies, some organisations actually employ computer hackers as part of their technical support staff. These individuals use their skills to find flaws in the company’s security system so that they can be repaired quickly. In many cases, this type of computer hacking helps prevent Identity Theft and other serious computer-related crimes.

Computer hacking can also lead to other constructive technological developments, since many of the skills developed from hacking apply to more mainstream pursuits. For example, former hackers Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson went on to create the UNIX operating system in the 1970s. This system had a huge impact on the development of Linux, a free UNIX-like operating system. Shawn Fanning, the creator of Napster, is another hacker well known for his accomplishments outside of computer hacking.

In comparison to those who develop an interest in computer hacking out of simple intellectual curiosity, some hackers have less noble motives. Hackers who are out to steal personal information, change a corporation’s financial data, break security codes to gain unauthorized network access, or conduct other destructive activities are sometimes called “crackers.” This type of computer hacking can earn you a trip to a federal prison for up to 20 years.
If you are interested in protecting your home computer against malicious hackers, investing in a good firewall is highly recommended. It’s also a good idea to check your software programs for updates on a regular basis. For example, Microsoft offers a number of free security patches for its Internet Explorer browser.

Different hacking Techniques:
Hacking is obtaining illegal access to information on your computer, or another persons computer. Password cracking, spoofing, and sniffing are the main techniques that hackers use. A typical network hacking could involve all three methods simultaneously. For example:
- A hacker could first trick a user to visit the hacker's site and enter some personal data in it. This is called spoofing.
- While the user is entering the information, the hacker could sniff the network traffic emerging from the user's computer and obtain a list of passwords and logins. This is called sniffing.
- If the passwords are encrypted, the hacker could use a password-cracking tool to decrypt them.

There are other types of hacking techniques:
1) Buffer over flow hacking
2) Brute force hacking
3) TCP hacking
4) Black hat hacking
5) SQL injection hacking
6) Command line hacking.

The buffer overflow attack is one of the most common on the Internet. Just like the Y2K problem occurred because of the common coding mistake of using 2-digits, the buffer overflow bug is caused by a typical mistake of not double-checking input, and allowing large input (like a login name of a thousand characters) "overflow" into some other region of memory, causing a crash or a break.

One of the most common techniques used by hackers to penetrate your network, is just plain-old password guessing. This goes for external hacking attempts as well as internal hacking attempts. In this article I will discuss how hackers can use tools to perform brute force password hacking in your Terminal Server environments and what you can to prevent these kinds of attacks.

I have been reading into modifying my TCP/IP stack. I know that doing this lets you change your maximum amount of connections from 10 to 50.
Black Hat Hackers (also called "crackers"), are hackers who specialize in unauthorized penetration. They may use computers to attack systems for profit, for fun, or for political motivations or as a part of a social cause. Such penetration often involves modification and/or destruction of data, and is done without authorization and hence they should not be confused with ethical hackers.

The SQL Injection attack allows external users to read details from the database. In a well designed system this will only include data that is available to the public anyway. In a poorly designed system this may allow external users to discover other users' passwords
Not a huge hack, but I sometimes get annoyed that I have to go to maps.google.com and then enter an address, click a button, then if I want to link to the map, then I have to click a “link to this map” link, and then copy and paste. Isn’t there an easier way to do this?

In our opinion hackers are good programmers and they are having excellent computer skills. These hackers are of two types, they are good ones and bad ones. These hacking techniques can be used for good and bad ones.