Explained: What is Hacking? | Ethical hacking | Types of Hacking & More

The term hacking has been around for quite a long time now. The first recorded instance of hacking dates back to the early 1960s in MIT where both the terms hacking and hackers coined, then hacking has evolved into a broadly followed discipline for the computing community.

What exactly is hacking?

So hacking is the process of finding vulnerabilities in a system and using these found vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access into the system to perform malicious activities ranging from deleting system files or stealing sensitive information.

Hacking is illegal and can lead to extreme consequences if you're caught in the act, people have been sentenced to years and years of imprisonment because of hacking. Nonetheless, hacking can be legal if done with permission. 

Computer experts are often hired by companies to hack into their systems to find out vulnerabilities and weak endpoints so that they can be fixed, this is done as a precautionary measure against legitimate hackers who have malicious intentions.  

Such people who hack into a system with permission without any malicious intent are known as ethical hackers, and the process is known as ethical hacking.

Different types of hackers 

1. White hat hackers 

Now white hat hackers are another name for an ethical hacker, they hack into a system with prior permission to find out vulnerabilities so that they can be fixed before a person who malicious intent finds them and does his job with it.

2. Black hat hackers 

Now black hat hackers also known as crackers are those who hack in order to gain unauthorized access to a system and harm its operations or steal sensitive information. 

Black hat hacking is illegal and has always been illegal, because of its malicious intent which includes stealing corporate data, violating privacy, damaging the system, blocking metric communications, and much more.

3. Grey hat hackers 

Now grey hat hackers are a blend of both black hat and white hat hackers. They act without malicious intent but for their own fun, they exploit security weakness in a computer system or network without the owner's permission or knowledge.

Their intent is to bring the weakness to the attention of the owners and getting appreciation in form of a little boundary from the owners.

4. Suicide hackers 

Last but not least we have suicide hackers now a suicide hacker is a person who works with the intent to bring down major corporations and infrastructure. These kinds of hackers are not scared of the consequences of their actions, as they mostly work with a vengeance in their minds. 

These people are also called hacktivists because they mostly utilize the technology to announce a social ideological reform awesome religious reform or a political message, and generally, most hacktivism involves website deaf games or denial of service attacks.

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Different types of hacking in the World

Now we can segregate hacking into different types depending on what the hacker is trying to achieve.

1. Computer hacking 

So this is the process of stealing the computer ID and password by applying hacking methods and getting unauthorized access to a computer system.

2. Password hacking 

Now, this is the process of recovering secret passwords from data that has been stored in or transmitted by a computer system.

3. Email hacking

Now this includes gaining unauthorized access to an email account and using it without taking the consent of its owner for sending out spam links third-party threats and other such harmful activities.

4. Network hacking 

Now hacking a network means gathering information about a network using a tool like telnet, nslookup, ping, tracer, or net start. Now, these are done with the intent to harm the network system and/or hamper its operations.

5. Website hacking

It is the most common type of hacking. Now hacking a website means taking unauthorized control over the server and its associated software such as a database and other interfaces.

Now hacking can also be segregated into many more classifications but these are the five major types of hacking that exist today.

Now like every discipline out there in the world ethical hacking too is divided into distinct phases, ethical hacking has six distinct phases. Now, these phases are not strict rules but more like a guideline to be followed. 

1. The first step or phase of ethical hacking is called recognition.

Recognition is the process of information gathering, in this phase, the hacker gathers relevant information regarding the target system. These include detecting services, operating systems, packet hops to reach the system, IP configurations, etc.

And for this purpose vary stools like Nmap HP and Google Docs are used for recognition purposes.

2. Scanning

Now in this scanning phase, the hacker begins to actively probe the target machine or network for vulnerabilities that can be exploited. 

Tools like necess, next pose, and end map are widely used by hackers and ethical hackers alike in this process.

3. Gaining access 

Now in this phase, the vulnerability located during scanning is exploited using various methods and hackers try to enter the target system without raising any alarm.

The primary tool that is used in this process is called Metasploit. 

4. Maintaining access 

Now, this is one of the most integral phases, in this phase the hacker installed various backdoors and payloads onto the target system, just in case you don't know payload is a term used for activities performed on the system after gaining unauthorized access to it.

Secondly, backdoors help the hackers gain quicker access to the target system in the future whenever they want to do so.

5. Clearing tracks 

Now, this part is an unethical activity it has to do with the deletion of logs of all the activities that take place during the hacking session, nonetheless ethical hackers still have to perform this fails to demonstrate how a black hacker would go about his activities on the system that is being targeted.

6. Reporting 

Reporting is the last step of finishing the ethical hacking process, here the ethical hacker compiles a report with his findings and the job that was done such as tools used, the success rate, vulnerabilities found, and exploit processes.

• FAQ for Hacking

Q1. What is hacking and how does it work?

Hacking is the process of finding vulnerabilities in a system and using these found vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access or gain unauthorized access to files or networks.

It is primarily used by malicious hackers and is an electronic attack. It can take the form of unauthorized web activity, as well as a more disruptive form like keylogging, system exploitation, or data theft.

Q2. Why you should care about hacking?

Perhaps the biggest reason you should be concerned about hacking is for the financial security reasons mentioned above. 

If you’ve ever been shopping online and found yourself locked out of your account after a computer glitch, or found out your credit card information is compromised due to a compromised system, then you have some understanding of the damage hackers can do to your finances.

Q3. Are black hat hackers bad?

Black hat hackers are malicious hackers, sometimes called "white hat hackers" or "crackers"

They'll sometimes carry out phishing attacks, infecting your computer with spyware, or stealing your banking details by infecting your computer with a virus and using the trojan to take over your online bank account. But they don't have malicious intent, they just want to do things for a good, ulterior motive: money.

Q4. How does cybercrime work?

Cybercrime is defined as a crime involving:computer, Internet, Internet service, Network, Network administrator ,network address translation

The most common types of cybercrime are fraud and hacking. 

While cybercrime incidents are a rise in India, the percentage of successful cybercrimes is also increasing. The main reason for this is the unsecured networks, which the individuals and businesses engage with daily.