Most of the aspiring techies have an intense passion for becoming a hacker but don’t know where to start. Some enthusiastic network newbies have a strong desire to learn how to be a wizardly hacker. In computer security, a hacker is someone who converges on the safety mechanisms of computer and network systems. Upon listening to the phrase Hacker, most of us get into mind is that they are the people who break into computers and mess up everything on your device. This is what many of the ordinary people symbolize hacking in modern culture. But, hacking culture is not just chopping one’s device; rather, it is much more complicated and ethical than most people know.
People often search on the web with queries like “How to Become an Ethical Hacker,” What are the skills required to become a hacker,” What is the Best Way to Learn to hack,” “Where to start” and much more. I have come up with a detailed guide on how to become a hacker so that it can help all those enthusiastic techies who are craving to know much about hacking. If you are highly fascinated to learn basic hacking techniques, then you have landed in the right place. Check out this detailed guide on hacking and gain admiration to crack your way into the intricate world of hacking.
Hacker Attitude
Hackers are the one who builds things and solves problems. The mindset of a hacker is not just confined to this software-hacker culture comprising of expert programmers and networking wizards. The attitude of a hacker is somewhat different from others as their nature is independent of the specific medium the hacker works in.
Hackers believe in freedom and voluntary cooperation. To become a hacker, you should behave as if you have this kind of attitude yourself. To act as if you have the approach, you have to believe truly the position. By cultivating hacker attitudes, it can help you learn more and keeps you motivated. The most powerful way to become a master in any field is to imitate the attitude of masters not simply intellectual but passionate as well. Here are a few points that show how one can become a hacker by cultivating their mindset and attitude.
1. The world is chock-full of interesting problems waiting to be solved.
Being a hacker often seems to be loads of fun, but it takes a lot of effort followed by motivation. To become a hacker, you have to get a basic boost from solving problems, sharpening your skills, and exercising your intelligence.
2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.
You must keep in mind that creative brains are always precious, limited resource. Never waste your time on re-forming the wheel when there are so many interesting new problems waiting out there.
You need to believe that the thinking time of other hackers is valuable. Hence, it is a noble responsibility for you to share knowledge, solve problems and then give away the solutions so that other hackers can focus on solving new problems instead of holding to enduringly re-address existing ones.
However, “No problem should ever have to be solved twice” does not mean that you have to consider all existing solutions as pious, or that there is only one precise solution to any given problem. We come across many problems and a solution for that. It is often necessary to consider that we can do better. But, sometimes technical barriers or something else might block a good solution from being re-used and instigate people to re-discover things.
3. Attitude is no replacement for proficiency.
To become a master hacker, you need to develop some of these attitudes. But stealing an attitude solely won’t make you an immediate hacker. Becoming a hacker certainly requires intelligence, practice, dedication, and hard work.
Hence, you have to learn to disbelieve attitude and esteem competence of every kind. Hackers won’t let hypocrites waste their time, but they admire competence, especially proficiency at hacking, but proficiency at anything is assessed. Hard work and dedication are a must that plays a significant role in becoming a hacker.
4. Boredom and drudgery are destructive.
Hackers should neither be bored nor have to menial at mindless, monotonous work. Boredom and drudgery are not just disagreeable but truly evil. It is pretty much good that you need to stay away from boring bits, as much as possible, not just for yourself but for everybody else (especially other hackers).
5. Be Creative
If you wish to become a hacker, you need to be creative and start thinking artistically. Hackers should be like a blend of artists, engineers, and philosophers. Hackers have a diversity of interests culturally and intellectually, apart from hacking.
What Skills are Required to Become a Hacker?
In simple words, there is no magic to becoming a Hacker. But, like anything else that is important, it takes dedication and enthusiasm to learn. It is necessary to have a basic knowledge of various topics that you can check out in the below steps. These are the basics that every hacker should know before even trying to hack. Once you have a good grasp on everything in this area, you can move into the intermediary level.
Fundamental Skills
The best approach to turn yourself into a hacker is to begin from the fundamentals. Initially, you will have to master the basics to build a solid foundation. And once this is done, you’ll be in a position to explore new ideas and start thinking like a hacker. You can follow the below-mentioned points to start your job as a hacker.
1. Explore the Basics
It is an essential need to become a hacker you need some basic computer skills. These basic skills go above the ability to create a Word document or navigate the Internet. You need to be able to use the command line in Windows, edit the registry, and set up your networking parameters. Before heading to learn the concept of hacking, you need to spend pretty much time doing some online research to find out more information about hacking. This will help you lay the groundwork for your future steps and actions.
2. Technical Skills
If you’re aiming to become an average to an ethical hacker, you need to acquire the following technical skills.
>>Programming
- This is the fundamental hacking skill. Learning to program is like learning to write a good natural language.
- You need to learn how to solve problems and automate tasks.
- To become an elite hacker, programming is the most important skill that you can’t neglect.
- It is always better to have some basic knowledge of programming languages like C, HTML, PHP, JavaScript, etc.
>>Operating System
- There are several operating systems apart from UNIX.
- Windows operating system is one of the most commonly compromised systems. Hence, it is good to learn about hacking Microsoft systems, which are closed-source systems.
- Learn everything about OS on how to operate them, working procedure, accessing API’s, and much more.
- To become a great hacker, you need to know the cons of these operating systems and try to target them systematically.
>>Networking
You need to understand the basic concepts of networking and inner operations as well. You need to learn in deep how each type of packet is generated and the tweaks you can do manipulating them. You need to gain a pretty good knowledge of the following concepts.
- Subnet, LAN, WAN, VPN
- DHCP
- IPv4, IPv6
- DNS
- OSI model
- MAC addressing
- ARP
>>Website Hacking
There are loads of techniques to do website hacking, google OWASP.
If you wish to become a ninja, you need to gain more knowledge on below-given concepts:
>>Cryptography
- If you acquire in-depth knowledge in cryptography that includes usage, implementation, and breaking process, then it would be much better to become a great hacker.
- The more you learn the strengths and vulnerabilities of each cryptographic algorithm, the better the possibilities of overcoming it.
- Moreover, cryptography can be used by the hacker to conceal their activities and avoid detection.
>>Reverse Engineering (& debugging)
- Reverse engineering allows you to remove a bit of malware and re-build it with additional features and capabilities.
- You need to learn how to debug or disassemble and analyze software to understand how software processes its data and the process of info extraction from memory at run time.
- Reverse engineering enables the hacker to take an existing exploit and improve its signature so that it can hop former IDS and AV detection.
>>(Anti-) Forensics
- You will be considered as an expert hacker only when you are not caught! If you were caught hacking, then you can’t become a pro hacker.
- The more you know about digital forensics, the better you can grow at avoiding and evading detection.
- Learn where incriminating information is stored and also understand how to erase them securely.
>>Exploit writing
- You need to know debugging and computer memory to do this.
>> Virtualization
- You need to become proficient in using one of the virtualization software packages that include VirtualBox or VMWare Workstation.
- You need a secure and protected environment to practice your hacks before implementing them out in the real world.
- A virtual environment is the best place that provides you a protected environment to test and refine your hacks.
3. Find a Good Source to Begin
It is pretty much arduous to find the best source to begin from the basics. Despite there exists millions of books and other sources on the web that will teach you how to hack, they all need readers to have a set of pre-established skills and knowledge to understand the concepts introduced in them. However, all such sources might not suit your requirements.
Here is a great source that helps the beginners to gain much knowledge of hacking so that the readers could understand every concept with much ease. This book is called Hacking Secrets Exposed (HSE) that is advised for the aspiring techies who have a strong desire to commence their quest to becoming a hacker.
Hacking Secrets Exposed (HSE)
Hacking: The Art of Exploitation
How Long does it Take to Become a Hacker?
This question is a little difficult to answer since it is not something that can be mastered overnight. It requires knowledge, skills, creativity, dedication, and, of course, the time. Everyone can become a hacker provided they learn it from the fundamentals and build a strong foundation. So, if you aspire to be a hacker, all you need is passion and enthusiasm to learn and a good source of knowledge that will guide you through different concepts right from the basics. The most important factor in becoming the best hacker is persistence.
It also depends on how talented you are and how strong your work at it with much determination. Most people who try can obtain a decent skill set in eighteen months to two years if they completely concentrate on it. However, hacking is a vast ocean which takes years to explore its mystery. And if you are a genuine hacker, you will spend the rest of your life learning and developing your craft.
Age to Start Learning to Hack
The right age to start learning to hack is any age at which you are motivated. Most people seem to get interested between ages 15 and 20, but you need to know exceptions in both directions.
If you have all the above-mentioned skills, you can become a skilled hacker so that you can start implementation in the real world. Above mentioned are the full steps on how to be a hacker that can help you walk the road of being an expert hacker. Follow the complete guide which I’ve explained in the tutorial to gain pretty much knowledge about hacking and become a pro in hacking!
Bonus: Here is an answer from Adrain Lamo from Quora;
Take a little quiz for me today. Tell me if you fit this description. You got your net account several months ago. You have been surfing the net, and you laugh at those media reports of the information superhighway. You have a red box; you don’t have to pay for phone calls. You have crackerjack, and you have run it on the password file at a Unix you got an account on. Everyone at your school is impressed by your computer knowledge; you are the one the teachers ask for help.
Does this sound like you? You are not a hacker.
There are thousands of you out there. You buy 2600, and you ask questions. You read Phrack, and you ask questions. You join #hack, and you ask questions. You ask all of these questions, and you ask what is wrong with that? After all, to be a hacker is to question things, is it not?
But, you do not want knowledge. You want answers. You do not want to learn how things work. You want answers. You do not want to explore. All you want to know is the answer to your damn questions.
You are not a hacker.
Hacking is not about answers. Hacking is about the path you take to find the answers. If you want help, don’t ask for answers, ask for a pointer to the path you need to take to find out those answers for yourself.
Because it is not the people with the answers that are the hackers, it is the people that are traveling along the path.
Via Are You A Hacker? by ReDragon – original via Internet Relay Chat
Keep in mind that for every hacking tool, there is always a counter hacking tool. Therefore, be a smart hacker and more importantly, be a responsible hacker.
The term hacking has been around a quite long time now. The first recorded instance of hacking dates back to the early 1960s in MIT, where both the terms Hacking and Hackers coined. Since then, hacking has evolved into a broadly followed discipline for the computing community. Hacking is the process of finding vulnerabilities in a system and using these found vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access into the system to perform malicious activities ranging from deleting system files or stealing sensitive information.
Hacking is illegal and can lead to extreme consequences if you’re caught in the act. People have been sentenced to years and years of imprisonment because of hacking. Nonetheless, hacking can be legal if done with permission. Computer experts are often hired by companies to hack into their systems to find out vulnerabilities and weak endpoints so that they can be fixed. This is done as a precautionary measure against legitimate hackers who have malicious intents such as people who hack into a system with permission without any malicious intent are known as ethical hackers. And, the process is known as Ethical Hacking. So now, that we know precisely what ethical hacking is and who ethical hackers are, let’s go over the different types of hackers. So firstly, we have hat hackers. Now, white hat hackers is another name for an ethical hacker.
They hack into a system with prior permission to find out vulnerabilities so that they can be fixed before a person which malicious intents find them and do his job with it. After that, Black hat hackers, now Black hat hackers, also known as crackers, are those who hack to gain unauthorized access to a system. And, harm its operations or steal sensitive information. Black Hat hacking is illegal and has always been illegal. It’s malicious intent which includes stealing corporate data, violating privacy, damaging the system, blocking metric communications, and much more. Following which, we have grey hat hackers. Now grey hat hackers are a blend of both Black Hat and White Hat hackers. They act without malicious intent, but for their fun, they exploit security and weakness in a computer or network without the owner’s permission or knowledge.
They intend to bring to the weakness, the attention of the owners, and getting appreciation in the form of a little boundary from the owners. Last but not least is suicide hackers. Now, a suicide hacker is a person who works with the intent to bring down major corporations and infrastructure. These kinds of hackers are not scared of the consequences of their actions, as they mostly work in vengeance in their mind. These people are also called hacktivist. Because they mostly utilize the technology to announce a social, ideological reform.
