To think like a hacker, you must adopt a specific mindset that focuses on identifying and exploiting security flaws within a system. This thought process is crucial whether your goal is to ethically find vulnerabilities or to maliciously exploit them.
A hacker is someone who finds security flaws and either uses them for good, to help a company fix its holes, or for bad, to steal sensitive data and cause damage. This process involves several key steps that form the hacker’s approach.
1. Conduct Footprint Analysis
First, you need to gather as much information as possible about your target. This process is called footprint analysis.
- Consider the size of your target and potential entry points into their network.
- Identify all security measures currently in place.
- Gather information like company names, subsidiaries, phone numbers, domain names, and IP addresses.
2. Identify Backdoor Entry Points
Look for potential weak spots, which often act as backdoor entry points.
This includes:
- Startup companies that may have weak security due to a lack of resources.
- Smaller companies that have been recently bought out by a larger corporation.
Hacking these smaller companies can provide you with information on private networks, which can then be used to access the larger parent company’s network.
3. Scan for Listening Ports
Connect to listening UDP and TCP ports to determine what types of servers the company is using. By sending random data, you can identify the version of the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), mail server, or web server. Many TCP and UDP servers will respond to random data with information that identifies the running application.
You can then cross-reference this data with a vulnerable database like SecurityFocus to find known exploits for that specific software version.
4. Gain Access to Your Target
Next, you need to plan how you will gain access to the network. This often requires a username and password.
- You can directly contact employees by phone, pretending to be from the help desk or IT department.
- Many employees, completely unsuspecting, will give you the information you are looking for. You must sound authentic to make this work.
Once you have a username and password, you can launch a sneak attack into the network.
5. “Trojan” the System
Now that you have a username and password, you can gain a foothold in the system. The goal is to get into the company’s network without being detected, similar to the Greek story of the Trojan Horse.
You will be added to the administrators group, giving you instant access to any “admin only” information.
Replace legitimate software, such as Notepad, with a piece of Trojan code.
This code will allow you to become an administrator on the system, granting you access to log on at a later date.