Exploring Ethical Hacking, Cyber Threats, and Defensive Measures

Security of information is a matter of prime concern in today’s information based economy. We need to protect our data from hacking. Hacking is a process to utilize weakness in the system and gaining unapproved access to data and system resources. When business connect their systems and computer, despite of having many security setups, it raises a greater potential for security issues such as data loss, security breaches, malicious attacks. The objective of this paper is to describe types of ethical hackers, need of ethical hacking, steps in security testing plan and to implement measures to reduce vulnerability to unauthorized access or damage of information.

The information security is designed to protect confidentiality, integrity and availability of system data from those with malicious intentions. The increased use of internet has given an entrance to many things like twitter, LinkedIn, snapchat, Instagram, Weibo, QZone, online shopping and information distribution which invites hackers to exploit personal information. So, the demand of ethical hacking is to protect the system from the destruction caused by the hackers.

Role of Hacker

They are the computer programmer who has knowledge of computer programming and they have enough information on the system they are about to hack.

Hacking and Hacking stages

Hacking indicates the process of unauthorized intervention into a computer or network. Targeting specific machine for hacking should follow the five steps.

Survey:

It is the first step where hacker collects the information about the object.

Investigate:

This step involves exploring the information gathered during survey step and using the same to inspect the object. Hackers can use the automated tools during investigate phase which includes Unicornscan, NMap, Angry IP Scan, Nikto and Aircrack.

Gaining Entry: The actual hackings are taken in this step. In this the hacker can exploit vulnerabilities unveiled during survey and investigate phase.

Retain Access: Using malwares like rootkits, backdoors and trojan, the hackers keep the gained access for future exploitation.

Covering Track: In this step, the hackers cover their track and traces to skip detection.

Necessity of hacking

After the terrorist attack of 11th September 2001, the need of IT professionals came into existence. These peoples are hired by companies to expose loop holes in security and then advise on how to fix them.

Types of Hackers

Hackers are varied diverse creatures and are of seven types:

• Script Kiddie: These hackers don’t care about hacking. They just copy the code and use it for a virus. A common script kiddie attack is Denial of Service attack.
• White Hat: These hackers are professionals. They help to remove vulnerabilities from system and performs security audit of security test plan.
• Black Hat: These people are crackers who provide harm to system by gaining unauthorized access to an asset.
• Grey Hat: These hackers lie between good and bad hackers and might decide to reform and become a good hacker.
• Green Hat: They care about hacking and becomes full blown hackers.
• Red Hat: These are vigilantes of hacker’s world. They shut down themselves by uploading viruses, DOS and accessing their computer to destroy it.
• Blue Hat: These are security professionals invited by companies to explore vulnerabilities in software before launching it.

Malware threats

Malware is any software intentionally designed to damage computer network or server. Malware does the damage after it is implanted or introduced in some way into a target’s computer and can take the form of executable code, scripts, active content and other software. Malware are of following Kind:

• Worms: Worms have an ability to self-replicate to spread to other computers.
• Virus: Viruses are the most infectious type of malware. It self-replicates by copying itself to another program.
• Trojan: Trojan virus is designed to spy on victim’s computer access file and extracts sensitive data.
• Spyware: is a software that gathers information about person or organization without their knowledge that may send this information to another individual.
• Rootkits: it is a fraudulent computer program to provide continued privileged access to computer while actively hiding its presence. This might take complete control of a system. It is difficult to locate.

Ethical Hacking Process

The ethical hacking process needs prior planning of imperative and skillful issues. This is important for testing such as login test, web application test, physical penetration test, network services test. The security setup plan includes following steps:

• Establish the test target
• Select test environment
• Define test scope
• Determine test restrictions
• Determine test window details
• Obtain access credentials
• Obtain stakeholder approval

Devices for ethical hacker

• Nmap: Is a Network Mapper to audit network and OS security for local and remote hosts. It is a well for being fast and for delivering thorough results with security investigation thoroughly.
• Wireshark: It is a network packet analyzer. A network packet analyzer will try to capture, filter and inspect network packets and try to display that data packet as detailed as possible. It is an excellent debugging tool if we are developing network application.
• Nessus: It is a scanner that scans for vulnerabilities and configuration errors of network attack. It deals with software flaws, missing patches, malware and misconfiguration across variety of operating systems, devices and application.
• IronWASP: It is another great tool. Its free open source and multi-platform, perfect for those who need to audit their web servers and public applications.
• BurpSuit: It is an advanced platform to support entire testing of web applications. It is a collection of tools bundled together which in turn help in exploiting security vulnerabilities.
• Ettercap: This is the most useful tool for man in the middle and network sniffing attacks. Sniffing includes catching and interpreting the data inside a network packet on TCP/IP protocol.
• QualisGuard: This Software as a Service vulnerability management tool designed for scanning, mapping, and identifying malware on website.
• Aircrack: this tool cracks vulnerabilities for wireless connections and tests for card and driver’s capabilities.

Preventing Reconnaissance

Defense strategies for every network will vary. For every organization, it is useful to prevent information from an attacker.

Preventing Active Reconnaissance

Active reconnaissance can be restricted by implementing network defenses. It is difficult to remove active reconnaissance completely when services are provided to the outside world by means of internet. Active reconnaissance prevention includes:

• restricting the outside services
• assuring users know their external footprints
• Using Intrusion Prevention System technology

Preventing passive reconnaissance

It is an attempt to gain information about targeted computers and network. Preventing passive reconnaissance techniques includes:

• blacklisting systems
• thwarting bots using Captcha’s
• using third party registration data to provide services instead of using the actual person or organization registering the domain.

Conclusion:

The ever-evolving digital age is affecting information security immensely. As the technology is expanding the cybercrimes are increasing. Fortunately, the ability to counter cybercrimes has been developed. By being dependent on technology we are giving cyber criminals an invitation into our world through our identities, our bank accounts, and other important information. This paper highlights the work of ethical and malicious hackers. The ethical hackers maintain security, help us to understand organization security needs. On the other hand, malicious hacker intrudes the organizations security illegally and provide harm to the network for their personal benefit. If we analyze both the hackers bring forward the hidden security lapses of an organization. This information is used by the ethical hackers to make their clients understand their security needs.

References:

1. B. Kevin, “Hacking for dummies”, 2nd Edition, 408 pages, Oct 2006
2. D. Manthan “Hacking for beginners”, 254 pages ,2010
3. Matte Walker”, Certified Ethical Hacker”, TMH, 2011
4. Michael Gregg, “Certified Ethical Hacker”, 1st Edition, 2013
5. Sean-Philip Oriyano, “Certified Ethical Hacker Study Guide v9”, Study Guide Edition, 2016
6. Gurpreet K. Juneja, “Ethical Hacking: A technique to enhance information security” international journal of computer applications (3297:2007), vol. 2, Issue 12, December 2013
7. J. Danish and A.N. Muhammad, “Is Ethical Hacking Ethical?”, International journal of Engineering Science and Technology, Vol 3 No.5
8. http://www.pentest-standard.org/index.php/ PTS_Technical_Guidelines