Where to begin with hacking
I have seen this question so many times, “Where to begin with hacking?”
Now I am going to give you my opinion on where to begin. There is just one
thing you should remember, “Hacking is a lifestyle”.
There are three types of hackers:
White Hats:
The White Hat hacker has dedicated himself to fight malware and help
others with their computer problems. He is a person you can trust, and he
will most likely end up in a good paying job as a computer programmer or a
security consultant. He will most certainly not end up in jail.
Grey Hats:
The Grey Hat hacker are in between white Hats and Black Hats. He will most
likely commit pranks at people that he thinks is harmless, but it can also
be illegal. He can at one time be helpful and help you with a computer
problem, but at the same time infect you with his own virus. There is a
chance that the grey hat will end up in prison.
Black Hats:
The Black hat hacker also known as a cracker is the one who deface
websites, steal private information and such illegal activity. It is very
time consuming to become a black hat. It can be very hard for them to get
a job because of the illegal activity. If law enforcements gets you, you
can expect jail time.
So where to start?
You should know the answer to these questions before you start your
Hacking as a career.
Which type of hacker do you want to be (white hat, grey hat or black hat)?
Which type of hacking do you want to work with (website hacking, system
exploits, pentesting etc.)?
What is your end-goal?
You should meet these requirements to
become a successful hacker.
become a successful hacker.
>You shall be patient.
You shall dedicate a lot of time to hacking. You will never stop learning,
>since hacking is a lifestyle.
You should have a computer (I expect you to have one since you are reading this).
>You shall be interested in how the different computer systems works, and
how to control them.
Now that you have an idea of what kind of hacker, you want to be we will
look closer into the different topics you can work with as a Hacker.
Website Hacking:
You properly already guessed it, but website hacking is about hacking
websites. You use your skills to find exploits and vulnerabilities in
websites and web applications. Almost all major hacking stories in the
news are about websites and databases that have been hacked. Once you have
enough experience in website security you will be amazed about how easy it
is to find vulnerabilities in websites. However, it will take a lot of
effort and time to reach that level of skills. You will need to know a
large amount of server-side languages and website construction languages
like PHP, HTML, JavaScript, SQL, ASP, ASP.NET and Perl. This was just some
of the languages you should know about. I will recommend you to take
JavaScript, SQL and PHP very serious since it is in those languages you
will find the most vulnerabilities.
Pentesting and Forensics:
Pentesting and forensics can earn you big money. It is these guys the
company’s call when they have been hacked. They are exerts in operating
systems, wireless connections and exploiting computers. This way will take
A LOT of time and effort since there is so much you should know about. You
shall know about how the different operating systems works, which exploit
there is to them, how to exploit them, routers, encryption, malware etc.
the list is almost endless.
Code exploiting:
Not many people know about this. This will require you to be a complete
expert at programming. You shall be at least as good at these programming
languages as your main language like English. This kind of hacking is
taking a lot of time, and will require you to be patient. Do not get me
wrong, every company that releases software like Symantec, Google,
Microsoft, Adobe, and Oracle have hackers with these skills employed to
check their software for vulnerabilities. Sadly, they cannot find every
security hole and therefore some very smart black hat hackers are able to
find them, and exploit them before the companies get the vulnerability
patched. You should know the most popular languages like C++, Java and C
etc.
Computer security:
The work these people do looks a lot like the pentesters. These people is
able to detect and analyze new viruses and malware. They are working for
companies like Symantec, KasperSky and Avira etc. Some of them are also
working on labs that tests AV’s and new viruses. They are experts in how
viruses works and how they infect systems.
You should now have an idea on where to start and in which direction you
want to go. If you found any errors or typos feel free to contact me, and
I will look into it. I will be updating this thread recently and add more
details. I will soon add a dictionary, which explains the most basic
hacking terms. I have putted a lot of effort in this tutorial and my goal
with this tutorial is to give computer-interested people an idea of where
they should start.
To the so-called “noobs”, (though I am not a fan of that expression) who
reads this:
I hope I have inspired you to begin at hacking. I hope that I have cleared
things up a little bit, so it does not seem so messy anymore. If you have
any questions or something you did not understand, I would gladly explain
it to you again. As one last thing, I would HIGHLY recommend you to become
a white hat hacker. Welcome to the hacker’s world, a new world will open
up for you and you will never regret that you chose to become a hacker.