What is Hacking? Who are Hackers?

     Eric Raymond, compiler of “The New Hacker's Dictionary”, defines a hacker as a clever programmer. A "good hack" is a clever solution to a programming problem and "hacking" is the act of doing it. Raymond lists five possible characteristics that qualify one as a hacker, which we paraphrase here:

● A person who enjoys learning details of a programming language or

system

● A person who enjoys actually doing the programming rather

than just theorizing about it
● A person capable of appreciating someone else's hacking
● A person who picks up programming quickly
● A person who is an expert at a particular programming language or system

Types of Hackers:

Hackers can be broadly classified on the basis of why they are hacking system or why the are indulging hacking. There are mainly three types of hacker on this basis

● Black-Hat Hacker

A black hat hackers or crackers are individuals with

extraordinary

computing skills, resorting to malicious or destructive activities. That is black hat hackers use their knowledge and skill for their own personal gains probably by hurting others.

● White-Hat Hacker

White hat hackers are those individuals professing hacker skills and using them for defensive purposes. This means that the white hat hackers use their knowledge and skill for the good of others and for the common good.● ●Grey-Hat Hackers

These are individuals who work both offensively and defensively at

various times. We cannot predict their behaviour. Sometimes they use their skills for the common good while in some other times he uses them for their personal gains.

ETHICAL HACKING

Ethical hacking – defined as “a methodology adopted by ethical hackers to discover the vulnerabilities existing in information systems’ operating environments.”

With the growth of the Internet, computer security has become a

major concern for businesses and governments.

In their search for a way to approach the problem, organizations came to realize that one of the best ways to evaluate the intruder threat to their interests would be to have independent computer security professionals attempt to break into their computer systems.

What do an Ethical Hacker do?

An ethical hacker is a person doing ethical hacking that is he is a security personal who tries to penetrate in to a network to find if there is some vulnerability in the system. An ethical hacker will always have the permission to enter into the target network. An ethical hacker will first think with a mindset of a hacker who tries to get in to the system.

He will first find out what an intruder can see or what others can see. Finding these an ethical hacker will try to get into the system with that information in whatever method he can. If he succeeds in penetrating into the system then he will report to the company with a detailed report about the particular vulnerability exploiting which he got in to the system. He may also sometimes make patches for that particular vulnerability or he may suggest some methods to prevent the vulnerability

Hackers Target Facebook Third Party Applications To Invade Your Online Privacy

Most internet users wouldn't consider their Facebook account to be a real security risk.  For the most part, this is true, as Facebook.com is generally safe in terms of the information it gathers.  However, there's a loophole in Facebook's security that hackers are able to use to potentially access and even alter private information on your profile.

In 2007, Facebook introduced its wildly popular application development program.  This program allows third party developers, both companies and individuals, to create applications.  There are currently just over fourteen thousand Facebook applications including everything from cookbooks to virtual zoos.  While this means there's a diversity of great content available to users, it also means that personal information (which each application has access to) is in a wide variety of hands, and this creates security concerns.

How Applications Access Your Private Information

Every time you choose to add an application, Facebook asks you to confirm that you want to let this program both know who you are and access your information.  It's impossible for anyone to  add any application without agreeing to this set of terms.  Once you click okay, that application can technically access quit a bit of public and private profile information. 

While all of the most private information are kept on Facebook servers and require security authentication, a lot of info is available to applications you add. 

According to Facebook's Developers Terms of Use, this can include

". . . your name, your profile picture, your birthday, your hometown location, your current location, your political views, your activities, your interests, your relationship status, your dating interests, your relationship interests, your summer plans, your Facebook user network affiliations, your education history, your work history, copies of photos in your Facebook Site photo albums, and a list of user IDs mapped to your Facebook friends." 

Not only that, but you don't even have to add an application for it to be able to access your information; they can also learn your info whenever any of your friends add the program.  With all this information available, it's easy to see why many are concerned for their privacy. 

The Threat

For the most part, the danger doesn't come from the application developers themselves, but from hackers who may be able to infiltrate and misuse information collected by applications, especially those written by individual developers instead of companies.    2600, a hacker periodical, published an article detailing how to easily compromise three Facebook apps:  Moods, Superwall and Free Gifts.  These loopholes discussed only allow for minor security breaches, nothing really malicious.  For instance, hackers can change the sender and recipient of Superwall posts and free gifts.  There's even a Youtube video of someone changing another user's mood. Clearly, this is not a top level security threat, yet.  If a loophole exists, though, malicious minds can find a way to exploit it, and it's possible that a serious security risk is en route. 

It's important to note that the problem isn't with Facebook, or even with Applications in general, but with certain applications which don't use safe data practices.  The three applications mentioned earlier are exploitable because they use easily modifiable form sheets to collect data.  Other applications, and all the content published by Facebook itself are safe from hackers.  The real difficulty comes in trying to decipher which applications are safe, and how to make sure that you're not at risk.

What to Do

It's hard to find good solutions to the threat posed by Facebook third party applications.   The first thing to do is to make sure that you don't sign up for applications of questionable background.  Each program developer has a profile on Facebook that you can view to gain information about who they are and how to contact them.  This is the best way to find out what, if any, security protocols they use.  Pick applications that are made by reputable developers, and don't add every application that you're invited to.  Also, be judicious about who you add as a friend.  Remember that applications can access your information if any one of your friends signs up.   The more friends you have, the more applications that have access to your data, and the greater the potential of it falling into the wrong hands. 

Many people feel that the best way to ensure privacy is from the top up.  After all, the most certain way to close hacker back doors is for Facebook to take charge, or hold applications to more stringent security requirements.  At present, Facebook's terms of service clearly state that they are not responsible for the actions of third party developers.  Many users are voicing their concern over this policy, and its ramifications for information security, both to Facebook and the applications that they use.

If you think that you have been the victim of "apps hacking," then you should contact both Facebook and the application developer immediately, to alert them to this potential security flaw.  It's also probably a good idea to avoid that application, and others by the same publisher, as they may pose a continued security risk to your online privacy.

While hackers might be able to access some personal information through Facebook third party applications, being vigilant is the key to staying safe on the internet.

Tutorial on Password guessing attack

Passwords are used in every system for authentication of a user. Password is a set of symbol asssociated with a user. Password guessing attack is a type of attack in which an attacker tries to gain access of a system or network with a guessed password. Guessing a password is very simple type of attack but it is most effective if you know about the victim. The latest form of password guessing attack is carried out by automated tools which guess and try the password again and again to get the access of a system.
If you are doing it without any tool, you can try some information of users as a password which are generally taken as a passowrd. such as mobile number, birthday, name of gf/bf, birthday. So if you use this type of passwords then you can be hacked easily by a simple guess.


Password guessing attacks can be classified into two.


Brute Force Attack: A Brute Force attack is a type of password guessing attack and it consists of trying every possible code, combination, or password until you find the correct one. This type of attack may take long time to complete. A complex password can make the time for identifying the password by brute force long.
Dictionary Attack: A dictionary attack is another type of password guessing attack which uses a dictionary of common words to identify the user’s password.


We also have hybrid attacks, which append, prepend, or insert numerical (0-9) and special (!@#$%*, etc.) characters to dictionary terms. Passwords guessed at this level might be something like "129good45guess" or "pa55w0rd."'


A short and simple tutorial.. comment if any question