Today we are going to discuss this topic – ‘Different Types of Hacking with Full Information’. In this post, we are going to clear your all hacking techniques related doubts, and discuss the advantages, limitations of the techniques, and so on.
This is a very important topic for Computer Science and IT students, and especially for those who are willing to build their career in the Cyber Security Field. So, if you are really interested in this topic then stay tuned with us, and Let’s go.
Technology has evolved rapidly in the last two decades, bringing about new innovations and tools to help us navigate our tech-driven world. Computers and the Internet have changed the work environment of the world beyond imagination. The term ‘HACKER’ probably appeared in your news feed most of the time last year, for most of the prominent attacks and it’s likely to pop up a lot more.
The word ‘HACKERS’ is most likely a familiar term to almost everyone. There are different types of hackers, and hacking techniques exist. However, not everyone knows the entire concept of hacking including their targets, different hacking techniques, types of hackers, and their motives.
A Brief Introduction to Hacking
Computer hacking is the act of identifying and exploiting the system and network vulnerabilities in order to obtain unauthorized access to those systems. Hacking is an attempt to exploit a computer system or a private network inside a computer.
- In 2020, the average cost of a data breach was USD 3.86 Million Globally, and USD 8.64 Million in the United States. These costs include the expenses of discovering and responding to the breach, the cost of downtime and lost revenue, and the long-term reputational damage to a business and its brand.
- There is no concise data on how many people get hacked a year. However, considering there are around 2,200 cyberattacks per day that could equate to more than 800,000 people being hacked per year.
- There are over 715,000 cybersecurity experts employed in the US alone to counter this threat. Hackers create 300,000 new pieces of malware every day.
- Since 2017, the cyberworld has witnessed a worryingly rapid rise in phishing websites. As per cybercrime statistics from Google, the number of phishing websites grew from approximately 584,000, representing an increase of over 130.5% over the years.
Hacking is the activity of identifying weaknesses in a computer system or a network to exploit the security to gain access to personal data or business data. Simply put, it is the unauthorized access to or control over computer network security systems for some illegal purpose.
10 Most Common Types of Hacking Techniques
Hacking refers to the misuse of devices like computers, smartphones, tablets, and networks to cause damage to or corrupt systems, gather information on users, steal data and documents, or disrupt data-related activity. Hackers are usually after two things from your business: Data or Money. Usually, they are motivated by both, as uncovering a wealth of data can help them to cash in.
Hacking techniques are ever-evolving, and it’s important to keep up with new threats. Here we are going to discuss the 10 most common types of hacking techniques and much more. Let’s Go.
1. Phishing Attack
Phishing is a type of social engineering attack often used to steal user data, including login credentials and credit card numbers. It occurs when an attacker, masquerading as a trusted entity, dupes a victim into opening an email, instant message, or text message.
- It is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent (e.g., spoofed, fake, or otherwise deceptive) message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious software on the victim’s infrastructure like ransomware.
- In this type of hacking, hacker’s intention to stole critical information of users like account passwords, MasterCard detail, etc. For example, hackers can make a replicating first website for users’ interaction and can steal critical information.
Phishing is a huge threat and growing more widespread every year. 2021 Tessian research found that employees receive an average of 14 malicious emails per year. Some industries were hit particularly hard, with retail workers receiving an average of 49.
The financial impact of phishing attacks quadrupled over the past six years, with the average cost rising to $14.8 million per year for U.S. companies in 2021, compared with $3.8 million in 2015, according to a study from the Ponemon Institute on behalf of Proof point released Tuesday.
2. Malware Injection Attack
Malware means Malicious Software. The term “malware” refers to malicious software variants—such as WORMS, VIRUSES, TROJANS, RANSOMWARE, ADWARE, BOTNETS, and SPYWARE—that provide unauthorized access or cause damage to a computer.
It is one of the most common cyber threats. Malicious software (malware) installed on a computer can leak personal information, can give control of the system to the attacker, and can delete data permanently.
- A malware attack is a common cyberattack where malware (malicious software) executes unauthorized actions on the victim’s system. The malicious software encompasses many specific types of attacks such as ransomware, spyware, command and control, and more.
- Cybercriminals can use hardware to sneak malware onto your computer. You may have heard of infected USB sticks, which can give hackers remote access to your device as soon as they’re plugged into your computer.
A 2017 report from Cybersecurity Ventures predicted ransomware damages would cost the world $5 billion in 2017, up from $325 million in 2015 — a 15X increase in just two years. The damages for 2018 were estimated at $8 billion, and for 2019 the figure rose to $11.5 billion.
3. DNS Spoofing
Spoofing is the act of disguising a communication from an unknown source as being from a known, trusted source. Spoofing can apply to emails, phone calls, and websites, or can be more technical, such as a computer spoofing an IP address, Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), or Domain Name System (DNS) server.
- Domain Name System (DNS) poisoning and spoofing are types of cyberattack that exploit DNS server vulnerabilities to divert traffic away from legitimate servers towards fake ones.
- DNS spoofing, also referred to as DNS cache poisoning, is a form of computer security hacking in which corrupt Domain Name System data is introduced into the DNS resolver’s cache, causing the name server to return an incorrect result record, e.g. an IP address. This results in traffic being diverted to the attacker’s computer (or any other computer).
DNS is an unencrypted protocol, making it easy to intercept traffic with spoofing. What’s more, DNS servers do not validate the IP addresses to which they are redirecting traffic. It essentially uses the cache knowledge of an internet website or domain that the user might have forgotten concerning. It then directs the data to a distinct malicious website.
4. Social Engineering Attack
Social engineering is an attempt to urge you to share personal info, sometimes by impersonating a trustworthy supply. This is a manipulation technique that exploits human error to gain private information, access, or valuables. It has also been defined as ‘any act that influences a person to take an action that may or may not be in their best interests’.
- In cybercrime, these ‘human hacking’ scams tend to lure unsuspecting users into exposing data, spreading malware infections, or giving access to restricted systems. Attacks can happen online, in-person, and via other interactions.
- Many types of social engineering bait come in the form of phishing emails, whereas a clever hacker sends you a message that looks like it’s from someone you know, asking you to do something, like wire them money, or to click/download an infected attachment to see more.
An example of social engineering is the use of the ‘forgot password’ function on most websites that require login. An improperly-secured password-recovery system can be used to grant a malicious attacker full access to a user’s account, while the original user will lose access to the account.
5. Denial-Of-Service (DoS) Attack
A Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack is an attack meant to shut down a machine or network, making it inaccessible to its intended users. DoS attacks accomplish this by flooding the target with traffic or sending it information that triggers a crash. In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting the services of a host connected to a network.
A Distributed DoS (DDoS) Attack does the same thing, but the attack originates from a computer network. The DDoS attack uses multiple computers or machines to flood a targeted resource. In a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack), the incoming traffic flooding the victim originates from many different sources. More sophisticated strategies are required to mitigate against this type of attack, as simply attempting to block a single source is insufficient.
According to Corero’s whitepaper, The Need for Always-On in DDoS Protection, the average cost of a DDoS attack in the US is around $218k without factoring in any ransomware costs. Remediation and compensation are also a factor.
DDoS attacks have been steadily increasing in frequency over the past few years. According to a report from Cloudflare, ransom DDoS attacks increased by almost a third between 2020 and 2021 and jumped by 75% in Q4 2021 compared to the previous three months.
6. SQL Injection
An SQL (Structured Language Query) injection is a type of cyber-attack used to take control of and steal data from a database. SQL injection, also known as SQLI, is a common attack vector that uses malicious SQL code for backend database manipulation to access information that was not intended to be displayed. This information may include any number of items, including sensitive company data, user lists, or private customer details.
- SQL injections result in the theft of sensitive data. It can have devastating consequences for any business, government, or organization. Such incidents can damage the operations of the company, its reputation, and can bring some hefty fines enforced by data protection regulators.
- Being easy to implement and potentially one of the most dangerous, SQL injection attacks are, however, their most favorite choice. Between 2017 and 2019, around two-thirds (65.1 % to be precise) of all the attacks on software applications were SQL injection attacks only.
Some Common SQL Injection Examples Include: Retrieving hidden data, where you can modify an SQL query to return additional results. Subverting application logic, where you can change a query to interfere with the application’s logic. UNION attacks, where you can retrieve data from different database tables.
7. Missing Security Patches
Security tools can become outdated as the hacking landscape advances, and require frequent updates to protect against new threats. However, some users ignore update notifications or security patches, leaving themselves vulnerable. Despite how uneventful they might seem, though, security updates are obviously pretty important. As you might expect, having your personal device exposed to potential data leaks and malicious attacks is not ideal.
Along with other updates like dot-releases to (or complete overhauls of) an operating system, patches are part of essential preventative maintenance necessary to keep machines up-to-date, stable, and safe from malware and other threats. Potential consequences of not installing security updates are damaged software, loss of data, or identity theft.
8. Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) Attack
A Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) attack is a type of cyber threat where a cybercriminal intercepts communication between two individuals in order to steal data. MITM attacks often occur when a visitor uses an unsecured public Wi-Fi network or any unprotected network system. This can happen in any form of online communication, such as email, web browsing, social media, etc.
- The goal of an attack is to steal personal information, such as login credentials, account details and credit card numbers. Targets are typically the users of financial applications, SaaS businesses, e-commerce sites and other websites where logging in is required.
- This enables an attacker to intercept information and data from either party while also sending malicious links or other information to both legitimate participants in a way that might not be detected until it is too late.
One example of a MITM attack is active eavesdropping, in which the attacker makes independent connections with the victims and relays messages between them to make them believe they are talking directly to each other over a private connection, when in fact the entire conversation is controlled by the attacker.
9. Password Cracking Attack
A Password Cracking Attack is the process of obtaining the correct password to an account in an unauthorized way. Every password has vulnerabilities, and this makes it easy to hack. Password attackers use various techniques to crack passwords, including the use of records obtained from data breaches. Hackers will get your credentials through the style of mean, however, ordinarily; they are doing this through a follow known as key-logging.
- With the information malicious actors gain using password cracking, they can undertake a range of criminal activities. Those include stealing banking credentials or using the information for identity theft and fraud.
- The purpose of password cracking might be to help a user recover a forgotten password (due to the fact that installing an entirely new password would involve System Administration privileges), to gain unauthorized access to a system, or to act as a preventive measure whereby system administrators check for easily crackable passwords.
There are also password cracking programs that can run letter and character combinations, guessing passwords in a matter of minutes, even seconds. For instance, a five-character password could have about 100 different combinations, and a savvy password cracker could run through them all in seconds.
10. Cookie Theft
The cookies in your web browsers (Chrome, Safari, etc.) store personal data such as browsing history, username, and passwords for different sites we access. Cookie theft occurs when a third party copies unencrypted session data and uses it to impersonate the real user. Cookie theft most often occurs when a user accesses trusted sites over an unprotected or public Wi-Fi network.
- Hackers access the net website exploitation malicious codes and steal cookies that contain tips, login passwords, etc. Get access to your account then will do any factor besides your account.
- The attackers basically sent the I.P. (data) packets that pass through your computer, and they can do that if the website you are browsing doesn’t have an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate.
Some web browsers show all cookie data by looking in the preferences area. Lately, it has become more commonplace for browsers to hide this information, but that does not mean that cookie storage is less visible to an attacker. Stored cookies can also be stolen using Cross-Site Scripting (XSS).
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Cyber security practices continue to evolve as the internet and digitally dependent operations develop and change. In addition to these, there are many different types of cyber-attacks that are happening nowadays.
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