The Challenges Of Black Hat Hacking

In the early days of computing, a hacker was primarily referred to as a computer guru, someone who is extremely technical with a high expertise in computer also known as “Expert Programmers”. Nevertheless, as technology is advancing at a face pace, hacking has adopted a completely different definition. The modern definition is someone who access a computer system primarily to steal or destroy information. Hacking has caused major harm in the realm of technology. Over the years, hackers have become much more lethal in their craft. They manage to break into complex information systems from entities such as banks, government agencies, and private businesses. Furthermore, they often manipulate their victims through social engineering in order to obtain financial benefits. Hackers hold different label such as: black hat hacker and white hat hacker in which all have their own motives.

The word hacking, usually associated with information technology, is a term used for the development of creative solutions for a problem by someone in a non-professional environment. With the introduction of personal computers and the internet, anyone could create solutions to problems in computer science. This led to the emergence of “hacker culture”, leading to the decentralization of computer industry (Hicks, 2014).

Linton (2011, p.44) stated that hacking of network of common users and attacking their personal computers is one of the most threatening problems at present. It is happening in every second that results in a loss in several ways like loss of credentials, personal information etcetera. Although the use of personal computers and the internet has been increased rapidly, numbers of users who are the expert and have good knowledge to tackle the matters are very rare. In addition, time, as well as required equipment to protect hacking, is also very.

When people think of hacking, they think of the Matrix style hacking where they look at an interpretable screen with falling green symbols. Contrary to popular belief, hacking has become much easier as technology advances and more wireless alternatives become available such as bluetooth cars and phones. Technology companies have also begun to increase their security and has slowed the amount of attacks and has reduced the amount of personal information that can be stolen . However, even

Black-hat hacker | A computer attacker who tries to break IT security for the challenge and to prove technical prowess.

VII. Hackers have a bad reputation because a select few decide to engage in illegal activities and destroy systems, but the majority of hackers work with the government and corporations to secure critical infrastructure and they also use their talents to invent and advance technology.

Reconnaissance – Attackers may depend on social engineering to gain information, access, and data to a companies inner-working; This include finding out policies, office building security protocols; even dumpster diving for any information that could be used to initiate a scanning procedure. Counter measures for these methods include, enforcing employees to comply with security policies, constantly train employees in the methods of social engineering by attackers; this includes over the phone conversations subjecting an employee into disclosing any type of company information, no matter how innocent the information may seem (an alternative excuse for employees is to refer to company’s website), installation of security cameras, and use

A hacker is a person who breaks into computers, usually by gaining access to administrative controls. There are several types of hackers. The black hat is someone who breaks computer security without authorization or uses technology for credit card fraud, identity theft, and piracy. A security exploit takes advantage of a known security weakness. These are very common in website/domain hacking. A packet sniffer is an application that captures data packets, which can be used to capture passwords and other data in transit over the network. A spoofing attack involves one program, system, or website by pretending to be the real trusted program, system or website and then stealing your usernames and passwords. A keylogger is a tool designed to record every keystroke on an affected machine stealing user's passwords.

Prevalent to the current trend now is the dependency of the society on Information technology and communication systems. Every aspect of human life is one way or the other linked and controlled by information technology tools. The importance of information technology cannot be over emphasized as its unavailability could lead to a form of disaster or the other. Pivotal infrastructures like finance, healthcare, education and security are driven by information technology. However, information technology and its benefits are accompanied by vulnerabilities and risks that can be exploited by people with the necessary technical skills. Individuals like ‘Hackers’ and ‘Cyber Terrorist’ can cause disruption to information systems, commit financial fraud and also attack computers and networks. These attacks and disruptions could result to violence against people and properties. In some cases, death, serious injuries and severe economic loss could occur as a result of these attacks.

Reasons behind a data breach are just as varied as the people who carry them out. Most hackers fall in one of three categories, white hat, black hat, and grey hat hackers. The white hat hacker is a person who hacks legally; no information is stolen or vulnerabilities exploited. Instead, white hat hackers are hired by companies to try and breach the security in place, they then inform said company of how they managed to bypass security masseurs in order to help patch exploits in the security. Then there is the black hat hackers, these hackers hack without permission for self-gain or for the challenge. They normally steal information like credit card numbers, social security numbers and addresses. Other times the will sell the nature of the exploit on the black market to the highest bidder. However, financial gain is not the only motivation

The potential threats of dark web to the government are many especially breach of important and private information. There is another group separate from the hackers known as hactivists. Hacktivism can be referred to as the act of breaking or hacking into the computer network or gaining access to unauthorized networks with the intention of promoting information ethics, political ends, free speech and human rights. As websites become more secure hackers are using more sophisticated methods. In the past hacking was done by a group of hackers but recently it is done by individuals. The individuals who perform the act of hacktivism are known as hacktivists (Ortiz-Arroyo, 2013). Hacktivists has similar tools and techniques as hackers, but they do so with the intention of disrupting services, and take the public’s attention to the social or political cause. Hacktivism started in the early 1980s when hacking was done for fun and profit. It was then that hacking was marked as a threat. At first it was in the form of worms, and computer viruses that were used to spread protest messages. An example is the WANK (Worms against Nuclear Killers).

Black hat, grey hay, white hat, all terms to identify different classes or cyber criminals, all tied together under the label of hacker. Whether it is for the greater good or for pure evil, cyber security seems to be breached every day as the media puts out headlines of major retailers, governments, and social media sites being broken into for personal information, mockery, or even to instigate real physical war. The recent surge of technological advances has brought attention to a deadly force once overlooked by all, the hackers. These individuals commit cyber-crimes because they can retain anonymity, it is easier and less dangerous than a physical crime, and it makes it easy to draw attention on whatever it is they are attacking, which is why we as a society need to be educated on their motives and means of attack to protect us from their criminal actions. Criminals seem to be evolving at a quicker rate than technology, learning lessons from past criminals being caught and/or killed and adapting to the changing “smart” society.

Throughout the years the rate of computer crime has only been getting worse. For one thing the security development is falling behind the hackers’ knowledge how to bypass the latest security advancements. If the hackers’ are ahead of the newest security breaches then it does no good on helping the average person because they are at risk of having information stole from them at any point in time (Martin). If new security advancements don’t find a way to get back in front of the hackers’ knowledge then this worldly known problem will only continue to escalate throughout the next generations and the following making them have to work harder to solve the problems that we created for them and did nothing to fix it (Bellmore). Right now it is a major problem that needs to be resolved but it has to be acted upon very soon with determination or else it will just continue until the point where we lose control and hackers’ rule the world and nobody can stop them (O'Harrow). In order to unravel this difficult situation it is important that these current issues we are involved in are throw of the track of going on a express train the wrong direction to the dark side of the hackers’ we need help to bring it back to the light.

In today’s society, the term hacker is very well known across the world. It is scary to know that you are being a victim of any individual who works with remote computers. People who use unauthorized entries to other computers through communication networks such as the Internet, are known as hacker. Since the technology has improved, all people should have information about hackers and how we can protect our systems against them.

Some hackers break into a computer system just for fun, they enjoy the challenge of breaking into a computer system. But, many hackers break into a system purposely to commit fraud in order to steal, change and destroy vital data and information to harm the company or individual.