Hacking Basics Training — Introducing 8 Common Password Hacking Methods

Surely the first thing that comes to everyone's mind when they see the title of Hacking Basics is the word "danger", followed by words such as caution, vulnerability, and the stress of losing and stealing confidential information. The topic of Hacking Basics is actually not so negative and can be useful and effective in some cases, which ultimately comes back to the nature and mentality of these noble creatures. Together, in this post, we will examine the basics of hacking.

Introduction

Let's start with a brief introduction to the basics of hacking . Today, with the advancement of various technologies, including communication technology, the possibility of intrusion into various systems has also increased. Usually, almost every adult has a phone or system for himself, which can contain important information. He is constantly communicating with it through the Internet and other online messengers, and his only security measure is to set a password.

In centers, offices, and large companies that are connected to the Internet highways, there is a possibility of breaking their security wall at any moment, which is called hacking. We will learn more about this term in the post on the basics of hacking .

What is hacking?

In general, hacking is an act in which a person who considers himself a hacker , legally or illegally, breaks the security system of a person or organization, which is usually password-protected, and penetrates the targeted system. This penetration can cause irreparable damage to the system owner, the most important of which is access to confidential and vital information .

Hackers usually have a high level of expertise in the fields of computers, networks, and programming. With their specific skills, they identify ways to penetrate and exploit vulnerabilities in relevant systems and hack them.

Hacking history

Throughout history, and perhaps since the beginning of the human race, there have always been thieves and intruders who have acted with the intention of stealing people's property and assets for various purposes. But the precise term hacking was used around 1970 to 1980, when the term hacker was first used in a psychology journal and referred to the addictive nature of computers.

Later in 1982, as many realities have their roots in imagination, in a fictional film called "Tron," where the main character of the film intended to hack an organization's computer system, the idea was sparked in people's minds that why not do this in reality?

In 1983, another film called “WarGames” was made, in which a teenager tries to infiltrate the US space agency. In fact, these films were the ones that inspired people to do this. Since that year, many groups have been formed around the world that have started hacking large and important organizations, centers, and companies. It was also in those years that, following the damages caused by hacking, laws and regulations were created for hacking, and many people were arrested and punished.

Although not all of these hacks were malicious, there were also cases where hackers came to the aid of organizations and governments.

Now that we have briefly familiarized ourselves with the history of hacking, let's continue with the basics of hacking, but first of all, it is necessary to have sufficient knowledge about the principles of networking and related topics. To familiarize yourself with the principles of networking, you can also use the Faraders computer networking training series.

Hacking goals

Individuals or groups seeking to hack usually have one of the following goals:

Password hacking methods

Continuing the discussion of the basics of hacking, it is necessary to point out the importance of understanding hacking methods in order to deal with them. The main and most important goal of hacking is to obtain passwords. Today, most of the commercial and economic activities of individuals are tied to computer systems, and there is hardly anyone, both illiterate and literate, who does not carry out their banking and office work via the Internet or even invest in cryptocurrencies.

These people usually enter these transactions and online spaces with simple and common passwords, so these areas are a good target for active hackers. Common hacking methods include:

1. Dictionary Hack

The most common and fastest way to hack passwords in the hacking basics section is dictionary-based hacking. In this method, there is a small file containing millions of passwords that can automatically provide the hacker with a long list of passwords to finally identify the original password. Usually, most people use numbers and common words to make it easier to remember passwords, all of which are included in this dictionary.

The table below lists the 20 most common passwords of 2020:

So we should be careful not to use simple passwords. It is usually recommended that the password be a combination of lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, characters, and symbols.

2. Brute Force Attacks

The second basic method of hacking is the brute force search method. In this method, the hacker tries all possible passwords to penetrate the system, which makes the search process very time-consuming. In this method, the hacker tries all the information about you as a password, from your date of birth and name to your children and spouse, to your phone numbers and national codes. So always try to choose complex and combined passwords.

3. Phishing

Phishing is not considered a hacking method, but it ultimately leads to the hacking of the targeted system. In this way, billions of messages are sent to various email addresses around the world to various individuals, companies, and organizations.

The steps through which a phishing email hacks the targeted system are as follows:

1. A fake email is sent to the person or system they want to hack. It looks like it comes from an organization or business.
2. Usually, by including urgent words, etc. in this email, users' attention is immediately captured and they open it.
3. Inside these emails is a link that takes the user to a fake site that is completely similar to the one they are looking for.
4. The user enters their username and password without knowing about these processes, at which point they are either redirected to another site or shown an irrelevant message. At this point, the user's password has been hacked.
5. Ultimately, there is a person or organization that steals this information, sells it, or misuses it.

Since April 2020, when the coronavirus began to spread around the world, these people have had a golden opportunity and excuse to achieve their sinister goals by sending fake emails claiming to be from the World Health Organization or other health and medical centers. Google has recorded the number of these phishing emails as high as 18 million emails per day since April 2020.

4. Social Engineering

The fourth hacking method from the hacking basics topic is social engineering. This method is almost the same as phishing, except that this method is carried out in the real world, meaning a person or persons directly trick people into accessing their passwords and infiltrating their systems.

Let's take an example, suppose there is a scheme to register for a lottery or buy a car or a house and someone asks you to give them your password so that they can register you or they call you for internet support services and ask you for your password to upgrade your system. In all these cases, you unknowingly but voluntarily provide your password to social engineers and they can easily hack you and abuse your financial and information.

This method is usually used by very professional hackers.

5. Rainbow Table

Let's assume that a hacker has obtained a set of passwords and wants to log in to the victim's system. But in disbelief, he sees that these passwords are encrypted, meaning that in fact these passwords are the same hash codes that are different from the real password. For example, let's assume that my real password is "rezvan64", in which case its hash code is equal to: 9752f11e8f9c842143cf5d8730e09acc.

This may sound complicated and confusing to ordinary users, but it is not so for hackers. Hackers know these types of passwords, and when they get a set of these types of passwords, they convert them into their real form using the corresponding algorithms and collect them in a table. This type of table is called rainbow tables. For example, using this table, a hacker can say exactly that the code 9752f11e8f9c842143cf5d8730e09acc corresponds to “rezvan64”.

6. Malware or Keyloggers

In this section of hacking basics, we will discuss the definition of malware. In general, malware is a malicious program that penetrates systems with weak security and is transmitted to all systems through the network and destroys them. Malware infects systems in various ways, such as flash drives, downloading files from the Internet, etc. Access to all user accounts, stealing information, and taking control of the system are some of the harms that malware causes to systems.

The best way to combat malware is to use powerful antivirus software and keep it updated.

7. Spidering Method

Continuing the discussion of hacking basics, we come to the Spidering method. When a hacker wants to attack an organization or system, he first tries a series of passwords related to that business and organization, so far it works like the dictionary attack in the first part. If we look closely in nature, we will notice that spiders weave webs to go to each part, and the same is true in search engines, using the spidering method, a software that searches from one link to another using a specific and targeted algorithm.

It goes from site to site and finally provides a list of the results of these indexed searches. Finally, this list is used to find accounts and passwords. That is, when a hacker finds some information related to an organization and business, he uses the Spidering method to prepare a list of passwords and tries to log into the systems using them.

8. Shoulder Surfing

The last hacking method in the topic of hacking basics is looking from behind. In fact, the simplest type of hacking is looking from behind. Suppose you are sitting in a place like a waiting room or a restaurant and you are not paying attention to the people around you and those who are watching you. You constantly enter different sections with your phone, check your user accounts and enter your password, and perhaps repeat this several times. In the meantime, if someone sees your work and your phone screen, they can easily access your password and password and later abuse it.

In fact, this is the easiest type of hacking because you can easily access the other party's password without using any complicated or special technology. From now on, whenever you are in public places or places where there are other people besides you, be sure to be aware of your surroundings so that no one can access your private information and get you into trouble.

A final word on hacking basics

At the end of the discussion of the basics of hacking, we should note that security can never be guaranteed 100%. Because there are always people who work around the clock in this field according to their goals and find new ways to hack every day. The only thing we can do is to maximize security by setting complex passwords and a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, characters, symbols, and using one-time passwords. To better learn network concepts, use the Network Plus + Network training from Faraders to be prepared to perform various operations on the network.

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Finally, we hope that the information provided on the basics of hacking will be useful and that after studying them, we will be more careful in choosing passwords from now on to maximize security. 

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