Security hacker: Difference between revisions
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Like a virus, a worm is also a self-replicating program. The difference between a virus and a worm is that a worm does not create |
Like a virus, a worm is also a self-replicating program. The difference between a virus and a worm is that a worm does not create copies of itself on one system: it propagates through computer networks. After the comparison between computer viruses and biological viruses, the obvious comparison here is to a [[bacterium]]. Many people conflate the terms "virus" and "worm", using them both to describe any self-propagating program. It is possible for a program to have the blunt characteristics of both a worm and a virus. |
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=== Key loggers === |
=== Key loggers === |
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Revision as of 16:17, 27 July 2008
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (November 2007) |
In a security context, a hacker is someone involved in computer security/insecurity, specializing in the discovery of exploits in systems (for exploitation or prevention), or in obtaining or preventing unauthorized access to systems through skills, tactics and detailed knowledge. In the most common general form of this usage, "hacker" refers to a black-hat hacker (a malicious or criminal hacker). There are also ethical hackers (more commonly referred to as white hats), and those more ethically ambiguous (grey hats). To disambiguate the term hacker, often cracker is used instead, referring either to computer security hacker culture as a whole to demarcate it from the academic hacker culture (such as by Eric S. Raymond[1]) or specifically to make a distinction within the computer security context between black-hat hackers and the more ethically positive hackers (commonly known as the white-hat hackers). The context of computer security hacking forms a subculture which is often referred to as the network hacker subculture or simply the computer underground. According to its adherents, cultural values center around the idea of creative and extraordinary computer usage. Proponents claim to be motivated by artistic and political ends, but are often unconcerned about the use of criminal means to achieve them.
History
Artifacts and customs
Contrary to the academic hacker subculture, networking hackers have no inherently close connection to the academic world. They have a tendency to work anonymously and in private.[citation needed] It is common among them to use aliases for the purpose of concealing identity, rather than revealing their real names. This practice is uncommon within and even frowned upon by the academic hacker subculture.[citation needed] Members of the network hacking scene are often being stereotypically described as crackers by the academic hacker subculture, yet see themselves as hackers and even try to include academic hackers in what they see as one wider hacker culture, a view harshly rejected by the academic hacker subculture itself. Instead of a hacker – cracker dichotomy, they give more emphasis to a spectrum of different categories, such as white hat (“ethical hacking”), grey hat, black hat and script kiddie. In contrast to the academic hackers, they usually reserve the term cracker to refer to black hat hackers, or more generally hackers with unlawful intentions.
The network hacking subculture is supported by regular gatherings, so called Hacker cons. These have drawn more and more people every year including SummerCon (Summer), DEF CON, HoHoCon (Christmas), PumpCon (Halloween), H.O.P.E. (Hackers on Planet Earth) and HEU (Hacking at the End of the Universe). They have helped expand the definition and solidify the importance of the network hacker subculture. In Germany, members of the subculture are organized mainly around the Chaos Computer Club.[citation needed]
The subculture has given birth to what its many members consider to be novel forms of art, most notably ascii art. It has also produced its own slang and various forms of unusual alphabet use, for example leetspeak. Both things are usually seen as an especially silly aspect by the academic hacker subculture. In part due to this, the slangs of the two subcultures differ substantially. Political attitude usually includes views for freedom of information, freedom of speech, a right for anonymity and most have a strong opposition against copyright.[citation needed] Writing programs and performing other activities to support these views is referred to as hacktivism by the subculture. Some go as far as seeing illegal cracking ethically justified for this goal; the most common form is website defacement.[citation needed]
The security hackers have also edited some magazines, most notably:
Documents
 | This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information. (May 2008) |
Hackers from the network hacking subculture often show an adherence to fictional cyberpunk and cyberculture literature and movies. Widely recognized works include:
- Hackers (short stories)
- The Hacker Crackdown
- Snow Crash
- William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy
- WarGames
- Cyberpunk, by Katie Hafner and John Markoff
- The Matrix series
- Antitrust
- Hackers
- Enemy of the State
- Sneakers
- Swordfish
- The Net
- The Net 2.0
- Die Hard 4.0
Absorption of fictional pseudonyms, symbols, values, and metaphors from these fictional works are very common. A non-fictional document with which many members of the subculture identify is the Hacker's Manifesto.
Hacker attitudes
The term "Hacker" may mean simply a person with mastery of computers; however the mass media most often uses "Hacker" as synonymous with a (usually criminal) computer intruder. See hacker, and Hacker definition controversy. In computer security, several subgroups with different attitudes and aims use different terms to demarcate themselves from each other, or try to exclude some specific group with which they do not agree.
White hat
A white hat hacker or ethical hacker is someone who breaks security but who does so for altruistic or at least non-malicious reasons. White hats generally have a clearly defined code of ethics, and will often attempt to work with a manufacturer or owner to improve discovered security weaknesses, although many reserve the implicit or explicit threat of public disclosure after a "reasonable" time as a prod to ensure timely response from a corporate entity. The term is also used to describe hackers who work to deliberately design and code more secure systems. To white hats, the darker the hat, the more the ethics of the activity can be considered dubious. Conversely, black hats may claim the lighter the hat, the more the ethics of the activity are lost.
Grey hat
A grey hat hacker is a hacker of ambiguous ethics and/or borderline legality, often frankly admitted.
Blue Hat
A blue hat hacker is someone outside computer security consulting firms that are used to bug test a system prior to its launch, looking for exploits so they can be closed. Microsoft also uses the term BlueHat to represent a series of security briefing events.
Black Hat
A black hat hacker is someone who subverts computer security without authorization or who uses technology (usually a computer or the Internet) for terrorism, vandalism (malicious destruction), credit card fraud, identity theft, intellectual property theft, or many other types of crime. This can mean taking control of a remote computer through a network, or software cracking.
Script kiddie
A script kiddie is a person, usually not an expert in computer security, who breaks into computer systems by using pre-packaged automated tools written by others.
Hacktivist
A hacktivist is a hacker who utilizes technology to announce a political message. Web vandalism is not necessarily hacktivism.
Common methods
There are several recurring tools of the trade and techniques used by computer criminals and security experts:
Security exploit
A security exploit is a prepared application that takes advantage of a known weakness.
Vulnerability scanner
A vulnerability scanner is a tool used to quickly check computers on a network for known weaknesses. Hackers also commonly use port scanners. These check to see which ports on a specified computer are "open" or available to access the computer, and sometimes will detect what program or service is listening on that port, and its version number. (Note that firewalls defend computers from intruders by limiting access to ports/machines both inbound and outbound, but can still be circumvented.)
Packet Sniffer
A packet sniffer is an application that captures TCP/IP data packets, which can maliciously be used to capture passwords and other data while it is in transit either within the computer or over the network.
Spoofing attack
A spoofing attack is a situation in which one person or program successfully masquerades as another by falsifying data and thereby gaining illegitimate access.
Rootkit
A rootkit is a toolkit for hiding the fact that a computer's security has been compromised, is a general description of a set of programs which work to subvert control of an operating system from its legitimate (in accordance with established rules) operators. Usually, a rootkit will obscure its installation and attempt to prevent its removal through a subversion of standard system security. Root kits may include replacements for system binaries so that it becomes impossible for the legitimate user to detect the presence of the intruder on the system by looking at process tables.
Social engineering
Social Engineering is simply the art of getting unsuspecting persons to reveal sensitive information about a system. This is usually done by impersonating someone or by convincing people to believe you have permissions to obtain such information. A typical example would be eavesdropping on or discussing company security details at a cafe. A more subtle method would be via impersonation: requesting promotional material or technical reference material regarding a company's systems while pretending to be co-worker or contractor working under pressure or within unseen limitations.
Trojan horse
A Trojan horse is a program designed as to seem to being or be doing one thing, such as a legitimate software, but actually being or doing another. They are not necessarily malicious programs but can be. A trojan horse can be used to set up a back door in a computer system so that the intruder can return later and gain access. Viruses that fool a user into downloading and/or executing them by pretending to be useful applications are also sometimes called trojan horses. (The name refers to the horse from the Trojan War, with conceptually similar function of deceiving defenders into bringing an intruder inside.) See also Dialer.
Virus
A virus is a self-replicating program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents. Thus, a computer virus behaves in a way similar to a biological virus, which spreads by inserting itself into living cells.
Worm
Like a virus, a worm is also a self-replicating program. The difference between a virus and a worm is that a worm does not create copies of itself on one system: it propagates through computer networks. After the comparison between computer viruses and biological viruses, the obvious comparison here is to a bacterium. Many people conflate the terms "virus" and "worm", using them both to describe any self-propagating program. It is possible for a program to have the blunt characteristics of both a worm and a virus.
Key loggers
A Key logger, like a virus goes into the computer from another file, although you can manually install one to someones computer if you have access to it. Then the key logger, after being deployed copies or logs the words the victim types and emails it to the the person whom deployed it, and or saves it in the logs. Various hardware implementations of key loggers exist also.
Notable intruders and criminal hackers
The 414s
The 414s were a gang of six teenagers named after their Milwaukee, Wisconsin area code, who broke into dozens of computer systems throughout the United States and Canada in 1983. Their exploits included Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Security Pacific Bank. [2][3] The incident appeared as the cover story of Newsweek with the title Beware: Hackers at play,[4] possibly the first mass-media use of the term hacker in the context of computer security. As a result, the U.S. House of Representatives held hearings on computer security and passed several laws [5].
Mark Abene
Mark Abene (also known as Pber Optik) inspired thousands of teenagers around the country to "study" the internal workings of the United States phone system. One of the founders of the Masters of Deception group.
Dark Avenger
Dark Avenger is the pseudonym of a Bulgarian virus writer who invented polymorphic code in 1992 as a means to circumvent the type of pattern recognition used by Anti-virus software, and nowadays also intrusion detection systems.
John Draper
John Draper (also known as Captain Crunch) is widely credited with evangelizing the use of the 2600 hertz tone generated by whistles distributed in Captain Crunch cereal boxes in the 1970s, and sometimes inaccurately credited with discovering their use. Draper served time in prison for his work, and is believed to have introduced Steve Wozniak to phone phreaking through the 2600Hz tone. Draper now develops anti-spam and security software.
Farid Essebar
Farid Essebar (also known as Diabl0) is the creator of Zotob
Nahshon Even-Chaim
Nahshon Even-Chaim (also known as Phoenix) was a leading member of Australian hacking group The Realm. He targeted US defense and nuclear research computer systems in late 1980s until his capture by Australian Federal Police in 1990. He and fellow Realm members Electron and Nom were the world's first computer intruders prosecuted based on evidence gathered from remote computer intercept.
MaddoxX
MaddoxX was a 20 year old hacker from Maastricht, Netherlands. He successfully hacked into Valve Corporation's Cybercafe Service in April, 2007 and stole thousands of customer's financial records and credit card details by exploiting flaws in Valve's servers. Later that year, MaddoxX hacked into a UK Ticket Holding site and extracted over 50,000 credit card details which he then used for playing online poker and purchasing computer hardware. MaddoxX used remote PC's to cover his activites over the Internet, but was arrested on June 27th, 2008 by the Dutch Police. Damages for the stolen credit card details are at 13 Million Euros.
It is also reported that in 2006 MaddoxX hacked into Activision Inc's servers and stole a developmental copy of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, which was unreleased at that time.
Markus Hess
Markus Hess is a West German who hacked into United States Military sites and collected information for the KGB; he was eventually tracked down by Clifford Stoll.
Jonathan James
Jonathan James (also known as c0mrade) downloaded $1.7 million dollars worth of software which controlled the International Space Station's life sustaining elements, and intercepted thousands of electronic messages relating to U.S. nuclear activities from the Department of Defense. Sentenced at age 16, he was the youngest person ever incarcerated for cybercrime in the United States.
ne0h
ne0h was reported to have been employed by a Pakistani terrorist with Al-Qaeda connections, in order to steal student information from a Chinese university (reportedly, one comparable to MIT[citation needed]), India's Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, and SIPRNet, the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Data Network.
Adrian Lamo
Lamo surrendered to federal authorities in 2003 after a brief manhunt, and was charged with nontechnical but surprisingly successful intrusions into computer systems at Microsoft, The New York Times, Lexis-Nexis, MCI WorldCom, SBC, Yahoo!, and others. His methods were controversial, and his full-disclosure-by-media practices led some to assert that he was publicity-motivated.
Vladimir Levin
Vladimir Levin allegedly masterminded the Russian hacker gang that tricked Citibank's computers into spitting out $10 million. To this day, the method used, or even if Vladimir was a mathematician, is unknown.
Kevin Mitnick
Kevin Mitnick was held in jail for four and a half years and released on January 21, 2000. He was convicted of computer related crimes and possession of several forged identification documents. Once "the most wanted man in cyberspace", Mitnick went on to be a prolific public speaker, author, and media personality.
Robert Tappan Morris
Robert T. Morris, while a graduate student at Cornell University in 1988, created the first worm, Morris Worm, which used buffer overflows to propagate. He is the son of Robert Morris, the former chief scientist at the National Computer Security Center, a division of the National Security Agency (NSA). Morris was not exactly a hacker of the computer security hacker culture, but a user of the MIT-AI, the home machine of the early academic hacker culture. According to Steven Levy, he was a true hacker who blundered.
v00d00
Jason Burks born October 2 1976, also referred to as "v00d00" is a former computer hacker, and malicious software writer. He is best known for writing the Juggernaut Hydra, and releasing it into the Progressive Insurance mainframe.
Craig Neidorf
In 1990, Neidorf (a co-founder of Phrack) was prosecuted for stealing the E911 document from BellSouth and publicly distributing it online. BellSouth claimed that the document was worth $80,000; they dropped the charges after it was revealed that copies of the document could simply be ordered for a minuscule $13.
Brian Salcedo
Brian Salcedo was convicted in 2004 of conspiracy to commit wire and computer fraud for hacking the Lowe's home improvement chain's unsecured wireless LAN in an attempt to capture credit card numbers used during transactions. The FBI claimed that the crime could have caused more than $2.5 million in damages. He was sentenced to 9 years in federal prison. The government claims that at the time of its imposition, Brian Salcedo's sentence was the longest federal prison sentence ever given for a computer related offense.
David L. Smith
In 1999, Smith launched the Melissa Worm, causing $80 million dollars worth of damage to businesses. Originally sentenced to 40 years, he eventually served only 20 months when he agreed to work undercover for the FBI.
rembrandt
In 2007, rembrandt was suspected to control the internal networks of the Deutsche Bank and propably parts of the european SWIFT System. The only things wich are known about this situation is that rembrandt contacted the Deutsche Bank, namely Mr. Karsten Heidrich [leader of DBCert] (as documented in released documents and e-Mails) and informed the Bank about this problem. The Deutsche Bank decided to inform and lie the german LKA (federal police) and some weeks later as rembrandt and a affiliate wanted to attend to a second meeting (invited by Mr. Karsten Heidrich again) and both where arrested and their flats where raided. Until now it is unclear why the police released rembrandt and his affiliate not even 12 hours later. All wich is known is that not even fingerprints where taken from rembrandt and that his affiliate got his Hardware (not even 48 hours later) back. The computers of rembrandt are still keept by the german LKA even he was not sued until today and never received any judge order wich legitimates this. It is also suspected that rembrandt social engeneered passwords and accounts and that the people supporting him released parts of the ~400GB data wich is suspected to where copied from the Bank at ThePirateBay for a short time.
Until now the only documents handed out seam to proof that Mr. Karsten Heidrich lied to the german LKA to get rembrandt busted. The released informations also do proof that the Deutsche Bank used very weak and even default passwords in the internal network. This may explains the whole situation and the reaction and decissions made by the Deutsche Bank. Until today no claim made by the Deutsche Bank was proofen. Also it is documented that the responseable prosecutor commanded a 3 Month observation of rembrandts flat claiming in official documents that this was needed to arrest rembrandt (wich happened before this was commanded). Furthermore the responseable prosecutor tried 3 times to blackmail rembrandt by offering a deal where rembrandt should accapt a guilt for things he self claims he did not otherwise he would get sued soon and judged hard.
It is known that rembrandt rejected these offers until today.
Notable Security Hackers
Eric Corley
Eric Corley (also known as Emmanuel Goldstein) is the long standing publisher of 2600: The Hacker Quarterly and founder of the H.O.P.E. conferences. He has been part of the hacker community since the late '70s.
Fyodor
Gordon Lyon (better known as Fyodor) authored the Nmap Security Scanner as well as many network security books and web sites. He is a founding member of the Honeynet Project and Vice President of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility.
Johan Helsingius
Johan "Julf" Helsingius operated the world's most popular anonymous remailer, the Penet remailer (called penet.fi), until he closed up shop in September 1996.
Tsutomu Shimomura
Shimomura helped catch Kevin Mitnick, the United States' most infamous computer intruder, in early 1994. He is the co-author of a book about the Mitnick case, Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick, America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw-By the Man Who Did It (ISBN 0-7868-8913-6), though Mitnick himself along with fellow hacker ygo2slow have raised questions about the book's accuracy.
Solar Designer
Solar Designer is the pseudonym of the founder of the Openwall Project.
Michał Zalewski
Michał Zalweski (lcamtuf) is a prominent security researcher.
References
- ^ The glider: an Appropriate Hacker Emblem
- ^ Detroit Free Press, September 27, 1983
- ^ The 414 Gang Strikes Again, Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Time magazine, Aug. 29, 1983, p. 75
- ^ Beware: Hackers at play, Newsweek, September 5, 1983, pp. 42-46,48
- ^ David Bailey, "Attacks on Computers: Congressional Hearings and Pending Legislation," sp, p. 180, 1984 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, 1984.
Related literature
- Clifford Stoll (1990). The Cuckoo's Egg. The Bodley Head Ltd. ISBN 0-370-31433-6.
- Code Hacking: A Developer's Guide to Network Security by Richard Conway, Julian Cordingley
- Kevin Beaver. Hacking For Dummies.
- Katie Hafner & John Markoff (1991). Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-68322-5.
- David H. Freeman & Charles C. Mann (1997). @ Large: The Strange Case of the World's Biggest Internet Invasion. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-82464-7.
- Suelette Dreyfus (1997). Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier. Mandarin. ISBN 1-86330-595-5.
- Bill Apro & Graeme Hammond (2005). Hackers: The Hunt for Australia's Most Infamous Computer Cracker. Five Mile Press. ISBN 1-74124-722-5.
- Stuart McClure, Joel Scambray & George Kurtz (1999). Hacking Exposed. Mcgraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-212127-0.