What Is Ethical Hacking & Types Of Hackers | Ethical Hacking Certification

         

                         Hi guys, this is very important post for all those who want to learn ethical hacking or want ethical hacking certification.This post will cover different aspects of hacking, different type of hackers and the methodologies they follow, their mindset and their working. This post will give you a introduction about how to be a hacker and how to get proper ethical hacking training.
So let us start

What is Ethical Hacking?
           Ethical Hacking is process of finding and exploiting vulnerabilities in a system and then rectifying them to protect them from other hackers. Person performing ethical hacking is person who has ethical hacking certification and holds good knowledge about computers, networks, programming and various vulnerabilities. His work is to secure his own network and protect it from all sort of cyber attacks.

Types of Hackers based on their knowledge :

Coders :
             Coders are real hackers. They are programmers having immense knowledge about many programming languages, networking and working of programs. They are skilled programmers who can find vulnerabilities on their own and create exploits based on those vulnerabilities. They can code their own tools and exploit and can modify existing tools according to their use.
You have to learn programming from basic to advanced level to be a coder.

Admins :

                   These are the computer guys who are not sound enough in programming but holds enough information about hacking and networking. These guys have Hacking certifications and can hack any system or network with the help of tools and exploit created by codes. Majority of security consultants fall in this group. They are Certified Ethical Hackers who are trained for securing networks.

Script kiddies :
                This is the most dangerous type of hackers. These type of hackers does not actually know what they are doing. They just use the tools and partial knowledge they gain from internet to attack systems. They do it just for fun purpose and to be famous. They use the tools and exploits coded by other hackers and use them. They have minimum skills.

Types of Hackers based on their motive of hacking :

White Hat Hackers :
              White hat hackers are ethical hackers with some certifications such as CEH( Certified Ethical Hacker). They break into systems just for legal purposes. Their main motive is to find loopholes in the networks and rectifying them. These type of hackers work with famous companies in securing their systems and protecting them against other hackers.

Black Hat Hacker :
              A black hat hacker may or may not have any hacking certification but they hold good knowledge about hacking. They use their skills for destructive purposes. They break into systems and networks either for fun or to gain some money from illegal means. They gain unauthorized access and destroy/steal confidential data or basically cause problems to their target.

Gray Hat Hacker :

               A grey hat hacker is a combination of a Black Hat and a White Hat Hacker. A Grey Hat Hacker may surf the internet and hack into a computer system for the sole purpose of notifying the administrator that their system has been hacked. Then they may offer to repair their system for a small fee.

      


  CEH or Certified Ethical Hacking is a certification exam every hacker must give in order to certify that he is a trained hacker. CEH is conducted by Ec-council. You can have the examination test by registering at their site. The CEH certification is famous all over the world. They provide training camps for this camp or you can train yourself by learning hacking from sites like This or by joining some local institutions that provide CEH courses. A person having this certification could easy get a job in IT Security sector. If your desire is to be a good hacker then this certification is a must have thing for you.

So now you know about different types of hackers and their working. I will be back with another post about how they actually hack into system. Stay tuned and keep visiting How to hack to Learn Ethical Hacking.


Learn more about hacking from Cyber Kendra

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What Are Cookies And Their Importance In Security?

 

                               Cookies are tasty, sweet and I have them daily in the evening with my coffee. Well, if that’s the cookie you think we would cover today in our article then you my friend are at the wrong place.

 Today we will discuss about Internet cookies and their importance from a security view point. An internet cookie is not the complex beast that has been made out of it by media, online publications and other websites.

In its simplest form a cookie is just a text string that any server stores on the user’s local storage (hard disk) just to be retrieved later. All the information in cookies is stored in the form of name-value pairs.

Those people who use Internet Explorer to surf the internet can easily browse their cookies using the Windows Explorer. Mostly the cookies are located at

C:\Documents and Settings\User name\Local Settings

or a similar directory inside the system32 folder on the C drive. Other browsers store their cookies inside their installation directories, some of the common ones are:

Cookie storage location for Chrome -

C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cookies

Cookie storage in Firefox is done in a text file which contains all the cookies. They are stored in this location :

C:\Documents and Settings\Windows login/user name\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\profile folder

                              A cookie can store relatively less data to large amounts of data. The simplest of cookies store just a simple user id. While relatively complex cookies store a user id, separate session id, time for session initiation and a lot of other values which could include your login data and maybe other relevant information too.

Misconceptions about cookies:
                                                One common doubt about cookies is that they can use our system or work as an application but it is not true. Cookies stored on our system can’t draw information from other cookies. They are just in place to be retrieved by the web server to communicate with the current activity status of the user. Any website can retrieve only the cookies that it has created on our system.

The different types of cookies:
                    Cookies are of two different types based upon their nature.

A cookie can be either:

1. Session cookie: A session cookie remains live until the user closes their browser. A session cookie stores the current information of the user such as main user id. Apart from this a session cookie has a very limited life and expires as soon as the web browser is closed fully.

2. Persistent cookie: A persistent cookie is one which stays on the system even after closing the browser. Persistent cookies can only be deleted manually or after they reach the set expiration time which is assigned to them. Once these cookies expire then the user has to generate fresh cookies with the required levels of authentication.

3. First party cookies: These cookies are generated from the same site that we are currently on. They store relevant user data for making the surfing experience personalized and easy.

4. Third party cookies: These cookies are often generated by advertising websites (like the double click dart cookie by Google), they track user’s activity across pages in order to show them targeted ads. While this may seem like a breach of privacy, it’s still acceptable as highly sensitive data is not tracked.

Threats from cookies:
                         With the rise in malicious programs and adwares, malwares the risk from rogue cookies is much high these days.
                         Malicious cookies can track our online activities and they build a web profile of the user based upon the surfing habits and pages visited by the user. But most of the users with good antivirus and firewall programs should not worry about such malicious cookies as they will be automatically flagged before causing any damage.

What is cookie stealing?
                                 Cookies are used to store session data and sometimes important information like login data etc is accessible through cookies stored in a user’s system.

Cookie stealing is essentially exploiting a computer session (the session key) for obtaining access to web services on a user’s system or information stored on it.

Cookie stealing can be done via various methods, few of which are:

1. Cross- site scripting: This involves running code on the user’s computer by fooling it to accept it as coming from a verified source. This allows the person initiating the stealing to get a copy of the cookies on the user’s system.

2. Session key stealing: An attacker who has physical access to a system can steal session key by having access to the file system on the user’s computer or the appropriate server.

3. Using packet sniffing:  (session side jacking): Packet sniffing can be used to read the traffic between two different information systems for stealing the session cookie.

4. Session fixing: This involves manipulating the user’s session id to one that is known to us by making them click on a malicious link containing our desired session id. Then once the user logs in, we get the sensitive information.

So guys this was everything you would need to get started with cookies, cookies are fun. They are everywhere on the web and they can steal your private information when not taken care of.

So, did you learn something new? Want to ask something or have some questions then tweet to us @joshimanoharp to move this conversation forward!

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How To Hide Your IP Address?

                          How to Hide Your IP Address

Borrow a different IP address to go anywhere online and stay hidden.

There are a few ways to hide your IP address...that unique number assigned to the network connection on the computer.

Top 4 reasons why people want to hide their IP address:

• Hide their geographical location
• Prevent Web tracking
• Avoid leaving a digital footprint
• Bypass any bans or blacklisting of their IP address

The safe and secure way

Use a Trusted Proxy or VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK. Sign up with these services and when you go online, you'll be showing the world a different IP address...one that's on loan from the service you're using.

Here are some VPN providers that you might consider:

• Hide My Ass
• Private Internet Access
• PureVPN
• VyprVPN
• SaferVPN

VPNs can be free or you can pay for the service. They help you get on the Internet and assign you a different IP address, but there's a wide range of reliability in providers.

There are many more advantages to using a personal VPN service over a proxy (usability, security, access to blocked sites).

Here you can Check VPN COMPARISON CHART

The easy way

Use Free Wi-Fi Outside of Your Home. An IP address doesn't travel with you. So if you simply go to a coffee shop, bookstore OR  HOTEL lobby and tap into their Wi-Fi, you will temporarily hide your usual IP address. How so? You'll be using their network's IP address for as long as you're online.

Try it out. First, check your IP address on WhatIsMyIPAddress.com, and then visit any place with free Wi-Fi, log in to their Internet and check it again.

However, if you don't use a VPN (read below), your Internet activity is at risk of being spied on or intercepted by a bad guy without your knowing it. How likely is that? Who knows! But don't make online purchases or check your bank account while drinking your Grande Espresso.

Related Articles

• What is a VPN?
• Compare VPN Providers
• How to change your IP address
• What is a Proxy Server?
• What is Tor?

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