Hacking: It Always Pays To Know Your Enemy
It always pays to know your enemy and when it comes to website hacking, no truer words have ever been spoken.
It Always Pays To Know Your Enemy
There are basically five types of hacking attacks that are waged against users of personal computers.
- Attacks That Deny Service
- Trojan Horse Attacks
- Virus Attacks
- Worms
- Website Attacks
Hack attacks that deny service are usually focused on network connections or open ports with the intention of overwhelming the system with “pings” or other requests.
Attacks that deny service are made by third party systems that are most often not even aware that they are part of the network of attackers.
This type of attack can cause a system along with it’s resources or several systems to crash.
Systems that are compromised or systems that have little to no security are usually the ones that are targeted by hackers.
Fortunately, most server software will flag the unusual activity and alert the network monitor that something is wrong.
Trojan Horse Attacks, as the name implies, are made with software that has been modified with a back door or a “timer” that can trigger a series of events at a later time on the users computer.
When users are downloading software to their computer, they could be downloading a Trojan that can get into their system and allow hackers to collect information about them to send to advertisers, marketing companies or use for other sinister purposes.
The more common Trojans are set to execute when a specific date or event takes place. They then execute whatever function the hacker has programmed them for.
Trojans are often found in freeware or shareware software programs and are very difficult to detect until they perform their programmed function.
Anytime you download freeware or shareware, you take the risk of getting one into your system.
Always try to make sure that the software programs you download are from reliable sources and that you really need what you are getting for “free”.
There are a lot of great free software programs out there that are Trojan free, but the final decision on whether or not to take the risk is up to you.
Virus Attacks are the most common and most feared of all hacker attacks.
The term Virus is well known online as it pertains to “viral” videos, e-books, etc.
and as the term implies, it functions exactly like it’s biological counterparts.
The primary function of a virus is replication and is usually spread by email.
Once an email is opened, the virus replicates itself on that computer and spreads from one computer system to another very rapidly.
Viruses spread themselves often in an attempt to attack and destroy the host system.
Fortunately, most new computers already have anti virus software and firewalls installed on them. As long as you keep the software definitions up to date and perform regular scans on your computer, most viruses will be kept at bay.
Worms are like viruses but they perform a different function, they slowly suck the resources from larger computer systems (mainframes of larger corporations) gather data and filter it back to the hacker who created the worm.
They operate like a parasitic tapeworm in a human being and do nothing but continue to eat up resources until it overloads the host’s computer and it ceases to operate.
Worms replicate as frequently as possible and are usually targeted to specific types of PC systems.
i.e. Apple computers running OS X, PCs running Windows Vista, etc.
When the worm enters the system it has targeted, it begins to quietly eat it’s resources until the operating system becomes overloaded and stops functioning altogether.
Website Attacks by creators of malicious websites are another form of hacking attack that needs mentioning.
These malicious websites use known security holes in various technologies to trigger your web browser to do certain things to your system.
Holes in JavaScript, Java, ActiveX, etc. can be used by hackers to usurp your web browser to give away your email address, send emails to anyone, upload folders or directories from your hard drive to a web directory, email files or folders from your computer to other parties, use your email for a spam list, etc.
You can protect yourself from most malicious website attacks by using the most current version of whatever browser you are using and installing updates, fixes or patches when they become available.
When it comes to website hacking, it always pays to know your enemy.
