What is Hacking & its effects ?

Hacking is an act of penetrating the computer systems to gain knowledge about the system and access it without the knowledge of the computer owner or administrator. Hacking is unauthorized use of computer and network resources. It is the act of gaining access to a computer or computer network without legal authorization.

About Hacking and different types of Hacking

Who is a Hacker?

A hacker is someone who has the deep knowledge in computer programming and all things related to the technical working of a computer. He is curious in the technical working of a computer and find's vulnerabilities in it. Hackers needed to be very knowledgeable so that they were able to identify bugs themselves (a task requiring extensive knowledge about the operating system, and reading complex manuals) and often write their own programs to exploit them. They had to keep track of the leading developments in the field (latest bugs, latest patches, latest bugs in the patches, etc.)

What all are the different types or methods of Hacking?
1. Website hacking
2. Software hacking
3. System hacking

What damage can a Hacker do?
This depends upon what backdoor program(s) on your PC and the mental strength of the hacker. Different programs can do different amounts of damage. These programs might allow a hacker to smuggle another program onto your PC. This means that if a hacker can't do something using the backdoor program, he can easily put something else onto your computer that can. Hackers can see everything you are doing, and can access any file on your disk. Hackers can write new files, delete files, edit files, and do practically anything to a file that could be done to a file. A hacker could install several programs on to your system without your knowledge. Such programs could also be used to steal personal information such as passwords and credit card information.

How do Hackers hack?

These are some ways in which a hacker can hack:-
NetBIOS Attack
ICMP Ping - DOS Attack
FTP Attack
rpc.statd Attack
HTTP Attack

NetBIOS Attack
NetBIOS hacks exploits a bug in Windows. They don't require you to have any hidden backdoor program running on your computer. This make NetBIOS the worst attack. NetBIOS is meant to be used on local area networks, so machines on that network can share information. The bug in NetBIOS is that it can also be used across the Internet, this gives the hacker a chance to access your machine remotely.

ICMP - DOS Attack
ICMP is one of the main protocols that make the Internet work. 'Ping' is one of the commands that can be sent to a computer using ICMP. A computer will respond to the ping request, telling the sender that the computer does exist or not. Pings may seem harmless enough, but a large number of pings can make a Denial-of-Service (DOS) attack, which overloads a computer. Also, hackers can use pings to see if a computer exists and does not have a firewall (firewalls can block pings). If a computer responds to a ping, then the hacker could then launch a more serious form of attack against a computer.

FTP Attack
FTP is the File Transfer Protocol and we use it to upload or download the files from websites. If you have a web page of your own, you may use FTP to upload it from your computer to the web server. FTP normally requires some form of authentication for access to private files, or for writing to files. FTP is also used by hackers. FTP backdoor programs, such as Doly Trojan, Fore, Blade Runner simply turn your computer into an FTP server, without any authentication.

rpc.statd Attack
rpc.statd Attack is specific to Linux and Unix. A fixed amount of memory is set aside for storage of data. If data received is larger than the buffer, the program should either truncate the data or send back an error. The data overflows the memory that has been allocated to it, and the data is written into other parts of the memory. This causes the data crashes. This will lead to system hang up. A skilled hacker could write bits of program code into memory that will execute the hacker's files.

HTTP Attack
HTTP hacks is harmful if you are using Microsoft web server software, such as Personal Web Server. There is a bug in this software called an 'unchecked buffer overflow'. If a user makes a request for a file on the web server with a very long name, part of the request gets written into various other parts of memory that contain active program code. This will make the sever down and function inproperly.

Software Attack
A hacker can create a software that can automaticlly install and run on your system. This make us impossible to remove the files that are generated by the software and it also distroys alll the important data in our system.

Most of the Hacking occur due to some weaknesses which include poor configuration of Web servers, old or unpatched software, disabled security controls, and poorly chosen or default passwords.