Talk to other hackers, they often have equipment laying around they are not using any more and will gladly give it to you knowing it will go to a good home and that it will be one more thing not cluttering up their home lab see " Find Like-minded People to Exchange Ideas With. If you are running Windows as the virtual machine host operating system, you are going to need hardware that will run a currently supported version of Windows. You will also have to factor in the cost of a license.
You can use a demo license but you will be rebuilding your host every 90 to days because the license will expire. This is fine for a virtual machine guest but it is a real pain to have to rebuild your host every few months. You can avoid the Windows licensing issue by running Linux as the host operating system.
I recommend using a long-term support version. If you do not know which Linux distribution to pick, use Ubuntu. I use Debian , which is what Ubuntu is based on. Once you get to know Linux, you can branch out and try other Linux distributions. Windows is more resource intensive that Linux. This applies to the virtual machine host and well as guests.
Despite this, I recommend you learn to use both operating systems as they constitute the majority of systems used. VMware and VirtualBox support more guest operating system types and will run on a Windows or Linux host. Hyper-V only runs on a Windows host so I will not be covering it. VMWare is the most full featured, however it is expensive. ESXi is meant to run on bare metal. Workstation requires a host operating system and Player is used to run virtual machine appliances built using VMWare Workstation.
I have used VMware for many years but moved to VirtualBox exclusively in the last few years and have found that it is well up to the task.
VirtualBox is under active development so they are regularly adding new features. Knowing how to use a search engine is a hacker superpower. The Internet is a treasure trove of information if you know how to dig for it.
Search engines such as Google have advanced search directives that can make it much easier to find what you are looking for. The better your systems administration skills the better you will be at hacking.
You will need to be able to install operating systems and configure basic services. There are plenty of free online resources for learning systems administration. You will also find these skills are essential for reusing the free hardware you have been getting see Where to get equipment to play with? You will need to learn how to modify the system configuration using the Windows Registry , Linux config files , and how to use init services.
Learn to embrace the Command line CLI. Some of the most powerful tools for systems administration and hacking do not have a GUI interface. Often your foot hold on a system will only be through a CLI. When you exercise a vulnerability and find yourself with a shell that that is not a fully interactive tty your skill with the command line will let you easily overcome the problem. See " Learn to Code " for Linux and Windows command line tutorials.
The default text editor on all modern versions of Windows is Notepad so learn how to use it. Virtually all Linux distributions come with vi installed by default.
On some systems, vi is an alias to vim. All the vi commands also work in vim. If you learn how to use vi, you will be able to use vim as well. Originally, networking hardware had a single function such as a router, gateway, hub, switch, or firewall. The reason was that the equipment was expensive.
Costs have come down significantly and miniaturization has allowed manufactures to build multi-function devices. You need to learn what each of these devices do and more importantly what they do when connected together to form a network. Networking is not just the hardware. It also entails the protocols that carry the information across the network.
The OSI model is a standard way of organizing the functions of a network stack. None of the common network stacks in use today strictly adhere to the OSI Model but the OSI Model is commonly referenced when discussing the functions within a protocol stack and when comparing functions between different protocol stack implementations. Whenever you are reading networking documentation and you see a reference to a " layer " they are referring to the functional layers of the OSI Model. There are numerous types of computer networks utilizing a blizzard of networking protocols , suites, and communications protocols.
As you learn about networking it can be confusing and overwhelming. Remember the first rule of hacking, the successful hackers are the ones that don't quit. Information security , at its heart, is simple and embodies the concept of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability CIA of information at rest and in motion. Confidentiality - only those authorized can access the information.
Integrity - the information is only modified by an authorized person. Availability - the data is available to an authorized person when needed. In a CTF capture the flag see " How to Practice Without Getting Into Legal Trouble " you will need to find what services are running on the target and if there are any known vulnerabilities. Nmap is the go to tool for scanning systems on a network.
Once you have discovered the systems, you will need to find what services are running and what vulnerabilities they have. Service and vulnerability discovery is also a critical tool that defenders need to master. OpenVAS is an open source fork of the Nessus vulnerability scanner. Nessus is a proprietary vulnerability scanner. Nessus Home is free and allows you to scan up to 16 IP addresses on your personal home network. Network services are not the only vulnerable processes you will find on a server.
Fully patched and hardened system can be compromised through web applications running on them. Web applications can be vulnerable due to bugs in the technologies used to create them or through errors in their configuration but the most common vulnerabilities are the result of insecure coding practices on the part of the web application developer.
Each category in the top ten represents a class of vulnerabilities that may contain more than one example. Ivanov and Vasiliy Gorshkov. July — CodeRed worm released. It spreads quickly around the world, infecting a hundred thousand computers in a matter of hours. October — A massive attack against 13 root domain servers of the Internet is launched by unidentified hackers.
The aim: to stop the domain name resolution service around the net. Lynn Htun is believed to have gained unauthorized access to many major computer systems such as Symantec and SecurityFocus. November 6th, — Microsoft announces a USD 5 million reward fund.
September — IBM presents a supercomputer which is the fastest machine in the world. Its sustained speed is 36 trillion operations per second. The spammers then used the e-mail addresses to send out 7 billion spam messages. The group, that included seven others charged earlier in the year, allegedly broke into a server that processes ATM transactions from 7-eleven cash machines.
Hackers were smuggled into the bank by an insider and used commercial keylogging software to capture login credentials and transfer money to overseas accounts. An intelligent hacker always clears all evidence so that in the later point of time, no one will find any traces leading to him. Premium Resources Training Courses. Phases of Hacking There are mainly 5 phases in hacking. Reconnaissance: This is the first step of Hacking.
We usually collect information about three groups, Network Host People involved There are two types of Footprinting: Active: Directly interacting with the target to gather information about the target. Eg Using Nmap tool to scan the target Passive: Trying to collect the information about the target without directly accessing the target.
Scanning: Three types of scanning are involved: Port scanning: This phase involves scanning the target for the information like open ports, Live systems, various services running on the host. Usually done with help of automated tools Network Mapping: Finding the topology of network, routers, firewalls servers if any, and host information and drawing a network diagram with the available information.
Maintaining Access: Hacker may just hack the system to show it was vulnerable or he can be so mischievous that he wants to maintain or persist the connection in the background without the knowledge of the user. Clearing Track: No thief wants to get caught.
Ethical Hacking What is Hacking? What is Ethical Hacking?
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