CHAPTER 1

ABOUT THE COMPANY

1.1 Profile of the company

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) is the premier R&D organization

of the Department of Information Technology (DIT), Ministry of Communications &
Information Technology (MCIT) for carrying out R&D in IT, Electronics and associated areas.Â
Different areas of C-DAC, had originated at different times, many of which came out as a result
of identification of opportunities
Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), is a Scientific Society of the
Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information
Technology, Government of India. C-DAC's areas of expertise range from R&D work in
Foundation Technologies to Product Development, IP Generation and Technology Transfer,
Deployment of Solutions in various sectors directly or through partnership model, High
Performance Computing and Grid Computing; Language Computing & Speech Processing;
Computer Science & Software Technologies including Free & Open Source software; and
Professional Electronics including Embedded Systems, Platforms, Specialized Hardware,
Broadband and Wireless Control Systems & Cyber-Security. On the applications and solutions
side, the prominent sectors include Science & Engineering, e-Governance, Health, Education,
Power, Railways, Industry among others. Education & Training Programmes focused on high
and specialized technical courses and finishing school type modules of relevance to industry.

1.2 History

C-DAC (Erstwhile CEDTI) Mohali, established in 1989 in the ELTOP(Electronics Town of

Punjab) Complex, caters to the training, consultancy, design and product development needs of
electronics and information technology industry and allied sectors.
It also promotes potential Entrepreneurs through various services, academic and training
progarms. The institute has its own aesthetically designed building with covered area of 4300 sq
mts. The building has an attached students hostel, which provides for residential facility to the

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outstation students. Another modern hostel and housing complex has been developed in sector-
70, Mohali that is a kilometer away from the institute.
C-DAC (Erstwhile CEDTI) Mohali, an institute under the Government of India, is the first
society of Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to have an ISO 9002
certification, which reflects the quality in conceptualization, design, implementation and
monitoring of the training programs. The certification is a testimony by international quality in
system that governs its well structured and regularity updated training  with global acceptance.

1.3 Research
The technologies dealt with within the house of C-DAC are Natural language
processing (NLP), Artificial Intelligence (AI), e-Learning, Multilingual computing, Multimedia
computing,Geomatics, Cyber Security, Real Time Systems, Software & Industrial
automation, High Performance Computing, Data Warehousing/Data Mining, Digital/Broadband
Wireless networks, Modeling and Visualization etc. The sectors addressed are Finance,
Healthcare, Power, Steel, Defence, Telecom, Agriculture, Industrial Control, Broadcasting,
Education and e-Governance.

Some of the major research areas are:

 Graphics and Intelligence based scripting Technology: GIST is one of the Dynamic
Groups working in Multilingual Technologies.
 System Area Network: HTDG is currently working on products based on the VI
Architecture specification. These include high-performance SAN interface cards and high-
speed, scalable switches for these SANs.
 Reconfigurable Computing System: Reconfigurable Computing System Cards at C-DAC
 Parallel Programming Environments
 High Performance Communication Subsystems
 High Performance Storage Systems
 Computational Atmospheric Sciences
 Computational Structural Mechanics
 Computational Fluid Dynamics
 Seismic Data Processing

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 Bioinformatics
 TETRA
 Basic Sciences
 Evolutionary Computing

1.4 Achievements

 Established the first international Internet gateway into India

 Vartalaap, a Unicode IRC Server
 enabled rendering of Devanagari and other Indian scripts at the OS level in Microsoft
Windows 2000/XP.
1.5 Services Rendered to Industries/Other Users over the past year

The Centre offered the following advanced technical services to various industries in the region:

i) Development of Lith Film

ii) EPROM Programming
iii) CNC PCB Drilling
iv) Development of Proto Type Single Sided PCB’s Photoplotting

The job work was done for the following companies: BEL, Panchkula, DURO Electronics, Spice
Telecom, Mohali, Narmak System, Mohali, PUNCOM,Mohali, Ariens Electrotech, Souvenir
Graphics, Labotron Instruments, Rohini Micro Systems, Allenger Medical Systems, Mohali,
DELTRON, Chd, TELEBOX, Mohali, MONTECH Instruments, SCL, Mohali, CDIL, Chd.,
INDOSAW, Ambala, Multioverseas Pvt. Ltd., Saksham Electronics Chd., Multioverseas Pvt.
Ltd., Alpha Medical, Chd, SAA Power Eng Pvt Ltd, BCC Fuba (I) Ltd, Micromation (P) Ltd.
Total revenue of Rs.72235.40 was generated through these facilities and services.

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C-DAC, Mohali is increasing its thrust in R&D and Consultancy and Market Orientation to
support the needs of the industry, users and entrepreneurs in many core competency areas of C-
DAC including :-

 Health Informatics
 Entrepreneurship Development
 Hardware Technologies
 Deployment of solutions in Government and various sectors
 Formal Education & Non-Formal Education & Training Programs including VLSI,
Networking etc

1.6 Notable ex-CDACians

 Dr. Vijay P. Bhatkar , Founding Executive Director,

 Dr. Srinivasan Ramani, founder NCST; Director, HP Labs India; Advisor to UN on
Information and Communication Technologies
 Prof. Sudhir P. Mudur, co-founder NCST; Professor, Computer Science Dept., Concordia
University
 P. Sadanandan, co-founder NCST
 Vijayraman, director Persistent Systems
 KSR Anjenayulu

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CHAPTER 2

INTRODUCTION TO ETHICAL HACKING

2.1 Reason for selecting Ethical Hacking as a project

Ethical hacking will reveal the flaws of what is being hacked (software, a website, a network,
etc.) without actually causing any damage. An ethical hacker will find the flaw and report it to
the owner so that it can be fixed as soon as possible.

There are various benefits of ethical hacking. This article lists the benefits of this kind of
hacking.
1. To fight against terrorism:
There are many terrorists and terrorist organizations that are trying to create havoc in the world
with the use of computer technology. They break into various government defense systems and
then use this for their terrorist activities. This can be prevented by using the services of ethical
hackers who counter the terrorists by misleading them.

2. To take preventive action against hackers:

Preventive action against the terrorists can be taken by the ethical hackers. This can be done
because the ethical hackers use their expertise to create alternate information that is false, of the
hackers to get while the real information that is necessary and important is hidden from the
terrorists. Preventive action that is taken by the governments against the breaking of the
networks saves money in billions of dollars as rectifying and building new systems will cost a lot
and also is very time taking. So the use of ethical hackers in doing this work of preventing the
real hackers from getting to the important information helps save a lot of money and also time.

3. To build a system that helps prevent penetration by hackers:

The ethical hackers are also used to try and test the existing defense systems. These people are
also used to build a foolproof system that prevents the breakdown of the existing system. Using

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the powers of the hackers to get a proper system built helps to prevent penetration by the hackers
and saves the information in the various government networks.

2.2 Abstract

Today more and more softwares are developing and people are getting more and more options
in their present softwares. But many are not aware that they are being hacked without
their knowledge. One reaction to this state of affairs is a behavior termed “Ethical Hacking"
which attempts to pro-actively increase security protection by identifying and patching known
security vulnerabilities on systems owned by other parties.
A good ethical hacker should know the methodology chosen by the hacker like
reconnaissance, host or target scanning, gaining access, maintaining access and clearing
tracks. For ethical hacking we should know about the various tools and methods that can be used
by a black hat hacker apart from the methodology used by him.
From the point of view of the user one should know at least some of these because some
hackers make use of those who are not aware of the various hacking methods to hack into a
system. Also when thinking from the point of view of the developer, he also should be aware of
these since he should be able to close holes in his software even with the usage of the various
tools. With the advent of new tools the hackers may make new tactics. But at least the software
will be resistant to some of the tools.

2.3 Introduction

Ethical hacking also known as penetration testing or white-hat hacking, involves the
same tools, tricks, and techniques that hackers use, but with one major difference that Ethical
hacking is legal. Ethical hacking is performed with the target’s permission. The intent of ethical
hacking is to discover vulnerabilities from a hacker’s
viewpoint so systems can be better secured. It’s part of an overall information risk management
program that allows for ongoing security improvements. Ethical hacking can also ensure that
vendors’ claims about the security of their products are legitimate.

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Understanding the Need to Hack Your Own Systems
To catch a thief, think like a thief. That’s the basis for ethical hacking. The law of averages
works against security. With the increased numbers and expanding knowledge of hackers
combined with the growing number of system vulnerabilities and other unknowns, the time will
come when all computer systems are hacked or compromised in some way. Protecting your
systems from the bad guys — and not just the generic vulnerabilities that everyone knows about
— is absolutely critical. When you know hacker tricks, you can see how vulnerable your
systems are. Hacking preys on weak security practices and undisclosed vulnerabilities. Firewalls,
encryption, and virtual private networks (VPNs) can create a false
feeling of safety. These security systems often focus on high-level vulnerabilities, such as viruses
and traffic through a firewall, without affecting how hackers work. Attacking your own systems
to discover vulnerabilities is a step to making them more secure. This is the only proven method
of greatly hardening your systems from attack. If you don’t identify weaknesses, it’s a matter of
time before the vulnerabilities are exploited. As hackers expand their knowledge, so should you.
You must think like them to protect your systems from them. You, as the ethical hacker, must
know activities hackers carry out and how to stop their efforts. You should know what to look
for and how to use that information to thwart hackers’ efforts. You don’t have to protect your
systems from everything. You can’t. The only protection against everything is to unplug your
computer systems and lock them away so no one can touch them — not even you. That’s not the
best approach to information security. What’s important is to protect your systems from known
vulnerabilities and common hacker attacks.

It’s impossible to buttress all possible vulnerabilities on all your systems. You can’t plan for all
possible attacks — especially the ones that are currently unknown. However, the more
combinations you try — the more you test whole systems instead of individual units — the better
your chances of discovering vulnerabilities that affect everything as a whole.
Don’t take ethical hacking too far, though. It makes little sense to harden your systems from
unlikely attacks. For instance, if you don’t have a lot of foot trafficin your office and no internal
Web server running, you may not have as much to worry about as an Internet hosting provider
would have. However, don’t forget about insider threats from malicious employees!

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Your overall goals as an ethical hacker should be as follows:
 Hack your systems in a nondestructive fashion.
 Enumerate vulnerabilities and, if necessary, prove to upper management that
vulnerabilities exist.
 Apply results to remove vulnerabilities and better secure your systems.

2.4 History
In one early ethical hack, the United States Air Force conducted a “security evaluation” of the
Multics operating systems for “potential use as a two-level (secret/top secret) system.” With the
growth of computer networking, and of the Internet in particular, computer and network
vulnerability studies began to appear outside of the military establishment. Most notable of these
was the work by Farmer and Venema, which was originally posted to Usenet in December of
1993.

2.5 Scope of Ethical Hacking

Security:
Security is the condition of being protected against danger or loss. In the general sense,
security is a concept similar to safety. In the case of networks the security is also called
the information security. Information security means protecting information and information
systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction

Need for Security:

Computer security is required because most organizations can be damaged by hostile software or
intruders. There may be several forms of damage which are obviously interrelated which
are produced by the intruders.
These include:
● lose of confidential data
● Damage or destruction of data
● Damage or destruction of computer system

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● Loss of reputation of a company
CHAPTER 3
METHODOLOGY
3.1 Hacking
Eric Raymond, compiler of “The New Hacker's Dictionary”, defines a hacker as a clever
programmer. A "good hack" is a clever solution to a programming problem and "hacking" is
the act of doing it.

Raymond lists five possible characteristics that qualify one as a hacker, which we paraphrase
here:
● A person who enjoys learning details of a programming language or system
● A person who enjoys actually doing the programming rather than just theorizing
about it
● A person capable of appreciating someone else's hacking
● A person who picks up programming quickly
● A person who is an expert at a particular programming language or system

Types of Hackers:
Hackers can be broadly classified on the basis of why they are hacking system or why the are
indulging hacking. There are mainly three types of hacker on this basis

Black-Hat Hacker
A black hat hackers or crackers are individuals with extraordinary computing skills,
resorting to malicious or destructive activities. That is black hat hackers use their knowledge
and skill for their own personal gains probably by hurting others.

White-Hat Hacker
White hat hackers are those individuals professing hacker skills and using them for defensive
purposes. This means that the white hat hackers use their knowledge and skill for the good of
others and for the common good.

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Grey-Hat Hackers
These are individuals who work both offensively and defensively at various times. We cannot
predict their behaviour. Sometimes they use their skills for the common good while in some
other times he uses them for their personal gains.

Social
Engineering

Automated
Organizational Attacks
Attacks

Restricted
Data

Accidental Breaches
in Security
Denial of
Viruses, Trojan Horses, Service (DoS)
and Worms

Different kinds of system attacks

3.2 ETHICAL HACKING

n Ethical hacking – defined as “a methodology adopted by ethical hackers to discover the

vulnerabilities existing in information systems’ operating environments.”
n With the growth of the Internet, computer security has become a major concern for
businesses and governments.
n In their search for a way to approach the problem, organizations came to realize that one
of the best ways to evaluate the intruder threat to their interests would be to have
independent computer security professionals attempt to break into their computer
systems.

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3.3 What do an Ethical Hacker do?
An ethical hacker is a person doing ethical hacking that is he is a security personal who tries
to penetrate in to a network to find if there is some vulnerability in the system. An ethical hacker
will always have the permission to enter into the target network. An ethical hacker will first think
with a mindset of a hacker who tries to get in to the system.
He will first find out what an intruder can see or what others can see. Finding these an ethical
hacker will try to get into the system with that information in whatever method he can. If he
succeeds in penetrating into the system then he will report to the company with a detailed
report about the particular vulnerability exploiting which he got in to the system. He may
also sometimes make patches for that particular vulnerability or he may suggest some
methods to prevent the vulnerability.

3.4 Required Skills of an Ethical Hacker:

• Microsoft: skills in operation, configuration and management.
• Linux: knowledge of Linux/Unix; security setting, configuration, and services.
• Firewalls: configurations, and operation of intrusion detection systems.
• Routers: knowledge of routers, routing protocols, and access control lists
• Mainframes
• Network Protocols: TCP/IP; how they function and can be manipulated.
• Project Management: leading, planning, organizing, and controlling a penetration testing
team.

3.5 Steps involved in Hacking:

As described above there are mainly five steps in hacking like reconnaissance, scanning, gaining
access, maintaining access and clearing tracks. But it is not the end of the process. The actual
hacking will be a circular one. Once the hacker completed the five steps then the hacker will start
reconnaissance in that stage and the preceding stages to get in to the next level.The various
stages in the hacking methodology are
● Reconnaissance

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● Scanning & Enumeration
● Gaining access
● Maintaining access
● Clearing tracks

Reconnaissance:
The literal meaning of the word reconnaissance means a preliminary survey to gain information.
This is also known as foot-printing. This is the first stage in the methodology of hacking. As
given in the analogy, this is the stage in which the hacker collects information about the
company which the personal is going to hack. This is one of the pre-attacking phases.
Reconnaissance refers to the preparatory phase where an attacker learns about all of the possible
attack vectors that can be used in their plan.

Scanning & Enumeration:

Scanning is the second phase in the hacking methodology in which the hacker tries to make a
blue print of the target network. It is similar to a thief going through your neighborhood and
checking every door and window on each house to see which ones are open and which ones are
locked. The blue print includes the ip addresses of the target network which are live, the services
which are running on those system and so on. Usually the services run on predetermined
ports.There are different tools used for scanning war dialing and pingers were used earlier but
now a days both could be detected easily and hence are not in much use. Modern port scanning
uses TCP protocol to do scanning and they could even detect the operating systems
running on the particular hosts.

Enumeration:
Enumeration is the ability of a hacker to convince some servers to give them information that is
vital to them to make an attack. By doing this the hacker aims to find what resources and shares
can be found in the system, what valid user account and user groups are there in the network,
what applications will be there etc. Hackers may use this also to find other hosts in the entire
network.

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Gaining access:
This is the actual hacking phase in which the hacker gains access to the system. The
hacker will make use of all the information he collected in the pre-attacking phases. Usually
the main hindrance to gaining access to a system is the passwords. System hacking can be
considered as many steps. First the hacker will try to get in to the system. Once he get in to the
system the next thing he want will be to increase his privileges so that he can have more control
over the system. As a normal user the hacker may not be able to see the confidential details or
cannot upload or run the different hack tools for his own personal interest. Another way to crack
in to a system is by the attacks like man in the middle attack.

· Password Cracking:
There are many methods for cracking the password and then get in to the system. The
simplest method is to guess the password. But this is a tedious work. But in order to make
this work easier there are many automated tools for password guessing like legion.
Legion actually has an inbuilt dictionary in it and the software will automatically. That is
the software itself generates the password using the dictionary and will check the
responses.
Techniques used in password cracking are:
· Dictionary cracking
· Brute force cracking
· Hybrid cracking
· Social engineering
· Privilege escalation:
Privilege escalation is the process of raising the privileges once the hacker gets in to the
system. That is the hacker may get in as an ordinary user. And now he tries to increase his
privileges to that of an administrator who can do many things. There are many types of tools
available for this. There are some tools like getadmin attaches the user to some kernel routine
so that the services run by the user look like a system routine rather than user initiated

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 program. The privilege escalation process usually uses the vulnerabilities present in the host
operating system or the software. There are many tools like hk.exe, metasploit etc. One
such community of hackers is the metasploit.

Maintaining Access:
Now the hacker is inside the system by some means by password guessing or exploiting some of
it’s vulnerabilities. This means that he is now in a position to upload some files and download
some of them. The next aim will be to make an easier path to get in when he comes the next
time. This is analogous to making a small hidden door in the building so that he can directly
enter in to the building through the door easily. In the network scenario the hacker will
do it by uploading some softwares like Trojan horses, sniffers , key stroke loggers etc.

Clearing Tracks :
Now we come to the final step in the hacking. There is a saying that “everybody
knows a good hacker but nobody knows a great hacker”. This means that a good hacker can
always clear tracks or any record that they may be present in the network to prove that he was
here. Whenever a hacker downloads some file or installs some software, its log will be stored
in the server logs. So in order to erase those the hacker uses man tools. One such tool is
windows resource kit’s auditpol.exe. This is a command line tool with which the intruder can
easily disable auditing. Another tool which eliminates any physical evidence is the evidence
eliminator. Sometimes apart from the server logs some other in formations may be stored
temporarily. The Evidence Eliminator deletes all such evidences.

Ethical hacking tools:

Ethical hackers utilize and have developed variety of tools to intrude into different kinds of
systems and to evaluate the security levels. The nature of these tools differ widely. Here we
describe some of the widely used tools in ethical hacking.

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 · Wireshark

Wireshark is a free and open-source packet analyzer. It is used

for network troubleshooting, analysis, software and communications
protocol development, and education. Originally named Ethereal, in May 2006 the
project was renamed Wireshark due to trademark issues.

Wireshark is cross-platform, using the GTK+ widget toolkit to implement its user

interface, and using pcap to capture packets; it runs on various Unix-like operating
systems including Linux, Mac OS X, BSD, and Solaris, and on Microsoft Windows.
There is also a terminal-based (non-GUI) version called TShark. Wireshark, and the other
programs distributed with it such as TShark, arefree software, released under the terms of
the GNU General Public License.

Features of wireshark

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Wireshark is software that "understands" the structure of different networking protocols. Thus, it
is able to display the encapsulation and the fields along with their meanings of different packets
specified by different networking protocols. Wireshark uses pcap to capture packets, so it can
only capture the packets on the types of networks that pcap supports.

 Data can be captured "from the wire" from a live network connection or read from a file
that recorded already-captured packets.
 Live data can be read from a number of types of network, including Ethernet, IEEE
802.11, PPP, and loopback.
 Captured network data can be browsed via a GUI, or via the terminal (command line)
version of the utility, tshark.
 Captured files can be programmatically edited or converted via command-line switches
to the "editcap" program.
 Data display can be refined using a display filter.
 Plug-ins can be created for dissecting new protocols.
 VoIP calls in the captured traffic can be detected. If encoded in a compatible encoding,
the media flow can even be played.
 Raw USB traffic can be captured with Wireshark.This feature is currently available only
under Linux.

Wireshark's native network trace file format is the libpcap format supported by libpcap and
WinPcap, so it can read capture files from applications such as tcpdump and CA NetMasterthat
use that format, and its captures can be read by applications that use libpcap or WinPcap to read
capture files. It can also read captures from other network analyzers, such assnoop, Network
General's Sniffer, and Microsoft Network Monitor.

· Samspade:
Samspade is a simple tool which provides us information about a particular host. This tool
is very much helpful in finding the addresses, phone numbers etc

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The above fig 2.1 represents the GUI of the samspade tool. In the text field in the top left
corner of the window we just need to put the address of the particular host. Then we can find
out various information available. The information given may be phone numbers, contact
names, IP addresses, email ids, address range etc. We may think that what is the benefit of
getting the phone numbers, email ids, addresses etc.
But one of the best ways to get information about a company is to just pick up the phone and
ask the details. Thus we can get much information in just one click.
· Email Tracker and Visual Route:
We often used to receive many spam messages in our mail box. We don’t know where it
comes from. Email tracker is a software which helps us to find from which server does the
mail actually came from. Every message we receive will have a header associated with it.
The email tracker uses this header information for find the location.

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The above fig 2.2 shows the GUI of the email tracker software. One of the options in the
email tracker is to import the mail header. In this software we just need to import the mails
header to it. Then the software finds from which area that mail comes from. That is we will
get information like from which region does the message come from like Asia pacific,
Europe etc. To be more specific we can use another tool visual route to pinpoint the actual
location of the server. The option of connecting to visual route is available in the email
tracker. Visual route is a tool which displays the location a particular server with the help of
IP addresses. When we connect this with the email tracker we can find the server which
actually sends the mail. We can use this for finding the location of servers of targets also
visually in a map

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 The above fig 2.3 depicts the GUI of the visual route tool. The visual route GUI have a
world map drawn to it. The software will locate the position of the server in that world map.
It will also depict the path though which the message came to our system. This software
will actually provide us with information about the routers through which the message or
the path traced by the mail from the source to the Destination..

HoneyBOT

HoneyBOT is a Windows based medium interaction honeypot solution.

What is a Honeypot?

A honeypot is a device placed on a computer network specifically designed to capture malicious

network traffic. The logging capability of a honeypot is far greater than any other network
security tool and captures raw packet level data even including the keystrokes and mistakes made
by hackers. The captured information is highly valuable as it contains only malicious traffic with
little to no false positives.

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 Honeypots are becoming one of the leading security tools used to monitor the latest tricks and
exploits of hackers by recording their every move so that the security community can more
quickly respond to new exploits.
How it Works
HoneyBOT works by opening over 1000 udp and tcp listening sockets on your computer and
these sockets are designed to mimic vulnerable services. When an attacker connects to these
services they are fooled into thinking they are attacking a real server. The honeypot safely
captures all communications with the attacker and logs these results for future analysis. Should
an attacker attempt an exploit or upload a rootkit or trojan to the server the honeypot
environment will safely store these files on your computer for analysis and submission
toantivirus vendors. Our test server has captured several thousand trojans and rootkits from these
simulated services including:
o Dabber
o Devil
o Kuang
o MyDoom
o Netbus
o Sasser
o LSASS
o DCOM (msblast, etc)
o Lithium
o Sub7

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HoneyBOT Installation
We suggest that you install HoneyBOT on a dedicated computer with no valuable information or
resources required of it. In fact, you want your honeypot to be as free as possible from any
legitimate traffic so in broad terms we can consider any traffic to the honeypot to be malicious in
nature.
HoneyBOT requires minimum operating system of Windows 2000 and at least 128MB RAM is
recommended.

Some other important tools used are:

· War Dialing
· Pingers
· Super Scan
· Nmap etc…

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CHAPTER 4
ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

4.1 Ethics
Moral values combine three decision attributes: ethical, social, and legal. Each of these attributes
is distinct but interdependent.
The term ethics refers to a sense of honesty and dishonesty. These are individual values; actions
that are ethical to one person may be unethical to another. Ethical actions are situation
dependent. Scanning a network or capturing packets may be considered ethical in one situation
but undesirable in another. Groups of people with similar ethics develop a moral code. Peer
groups and organizations may have social values that determine appropriate behavior.
Acceptable social values may vary between groups, regions, and cultures. For example, colleges
may teach students how to write computer viruses and analyze malware. Although writing
viruses is an acceptable behavior within this forum, there is no consensus among the wider group
of Internet users, and some security experts consider it to be an unacceptable practice
[Hulme2003].
Legal restrictions are developed for one of three purposes. If there is no consensus for social
values, then laws can be created to provide interpretation. Laws can also be used to specify
consequences for unacceptable behavior. For example, digital trespassing is a felony in the
United States with a punishment ranging from a fine to incarceration. Finally, laws can be used
to impose a minority opinion or competitive edge.
Although they are closely related, there is a distinction between ethical, social, and legal values.
Not every unethical action is illegal, and not every legal action is socially acceptable. Each is
dependent on the situation. By understanding the ethical, social, and legal implications, decisions
can be made that mitigate conflict or undesirable consequences.
In most countries, there is no limitation on what a user can place on his home computer. Just
because the software exists, however, does not mean that it should be used. As an example, Web
filters are commonly used to restrict network access. Parents may use them to prevent a child
from accessing adult-content Web sites. But filters can also track network access. Using a filter
to spy on a spouse’s network activities can be an invasion of privacy. Even though it is the same
technology, it can be used in acceptable and unacceptable ways.

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To elaborate on this example, China has a long history of filtering network access. Although this
is the same type of technology used to block a child’s access to pornographic Web sites, it is
applied to a much larger scale. Many countries outside of China have called this censorship an
unacceptable practice; this is a difference in social values. An action considered socially
unacceptable to some members of the international community appears acceptable to the Chinese
government.

Moral Example: Michael Lynn versus Cisco

When security vulnerabilities are discovered, it is considered socially acceptable to inform the
appropriate vendors before any public disclosure. This gives the vendor a chance to respond to
risks and develop mitigation options before informing bad guys who would exploit new
weaknesses. One debate topic concerns how long to wait before the public disclosure. Some
vendors may view a risk as a low priority, have limited resources, or may choose not to address
the issue. As a result, going public too soon may pressure the vendor into releasing an
incomplete solution, and not going public soon enough may give the bad guys an edge.
In 2005, Michael Lynn was selected as a speaker at the Black Hat Briefings security conference.
His topic, “The Holy Grail: Cisco ISO Shellcode and Exploitation Techniques,” became a heated
controversy. The talk discussed vulnerabilities in Cisco routers that had been reported to the
company months earlier. Cisco did not want the information made public, and took steps to
prevent the presentation including (1) removing the talk from the printed conference
proceedings, and (2) threatening Lynn with legal action.
From an ethical perspective, Michael Lynn appears to have felt that making the exploit public
was the right thing to do. Cisco had been nonresponsive toward correcting the problem and was
not disclosing the risks to its customers. Socially, Michael Lynn’s actions were met with a
favorable reaction from the security community. Although some people disagreed with Lynn’s
choice of disclosure, Cisco was widely criticized for initiating legal action and failing to respond
to security vulnerabilities.
Legally, Lynn walked into a minefield. Cisco and Lynn’s employer, Internet Security Systems
(ISS), served him with an injunction, preventing further disclosure[Cisco2005]. To give the
presentation, Lynn had to quit his job at ISS. And the Black Hat conference was forbidden from
disseminating the presentation materials and associated video.

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The line between right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable is not always clear. And doing
what seems like the right thing may still have undesirable results.

Moral Framework
A moral framework forms the basis of ethical decision making. By understanding the ethical,
social, and legal implications, decisions can be made that reflect positive moral values. Steps can
be taken to develop a moral framework [Markkula2006]:

Recognize ethical issues: Problems cannot be addressed until they are first identified. Being
able to identify situations with potential ethical, social, and legal implications is critical to
making moral decisions.

Gather information: What facts are necessary to create an informed decision? A single decision
may impact many different people. Who is likely to be impacted by a decision and how will they
be affected? Are there known ramifications or responses to particular actions? Not all
information may be present.
What information is known to be unavailable?

Test hypothetical decisions: Determine a good solution for the problem and evaluate it for
ethical, social, and legal implications. Consider reviewing the decision with peers or trusted
colleagues—other people usually offer different opinions and valuable insights. Also consider a
wider impact: if the decision were made public, how would the public react?

Implement and reflect: Act on the decision and evaluate the reaction. Did it turn out as
expected, or did unidentified issues develop? Given the same circumstances, would the same
decisions be made or would the situation be handled differently? Reflection on past decisions is
an ongoing process. Some actions may take years for all of the repercussions to be identified.
Knowing how to react to a moral decision, before needing to make a decision, is a critical skill
that takes effort and practice. Without this skill, unethical behavior is likely to be repeated.

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4.2 Advantages and disadvantages:
Ethical hacking nowadays is the backbone of network security. Each day its relevance is
increasing,the major pros & cons of ethical hacking are given below:
Advantages
· “To catch a thief you have to think like a thief”
· Helps in closing the open holes in the system network
· Provides security to banking and financial establishments
· Prevents website defacements
· An evolving technique

Disadvantages
· All depends upon the trustworthiness of the ethical hacker
· Hiring professionals is expensive.

Future enhancements:

q As it an evolving branch the scope of enhancement in technology is immense. No

ethical hacker can ensure the system security by using the same technique
repeatedly. He would have to improve, develop and explore new avenues
repeatedly.
q More enhanced softwares should be used for optimum protection. Tools used,
need to be updated regularly and more efficient ones need to be developed

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CHAPTER 5
SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 Ethical Hacking commandments

Every ethical hacker must abide by a few basic commandments. If not, bad things can happen.
The commandments are as follows:
· Working ethically:
The word ethical in this context can be defined as working with high profes-sional morals
and principles. Everything you do as an ethical hacker must be aboveboard and must support
the company’s goals. No hidden agendas are allowed! Trustworthiness is the ultimate tenet.
The misuse of information is absolutely forbidden.
· Respecting privacy:
Treat the information gathered with the utmost respect. All information you obtain during
your testing — from Web-application log files to clear-text passwords — must be kept
private. If you sense that someone should know there’s a problem, consider sharing that
information with the appropriate manager.
· Not crashing your systems:
One of the biggest mistakes hackers try to hack their own systems is inadvertently crashing
their systems. The main reason for this is poor planning. These testers have not read the
documentation or misunderstand the usage and power of the security tools and techniques.

5.2 Conclusion
One of the main aims of the seminar is to make others understand that there are so many tools
through which a hacker can get in to a system. Let’s check its various needs from various
perspectives.
● Student
A student should understand that no software is made with zero
Vulnerabilities. So while they are studying they should study the various possibilities and should
study how to prevent that because they are the professionals of tomorrow.
● Professionals

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Professionals should understand that business is directly related to
Security. So they should make new software with vulnerabilities as less as possible. If they are
not aware of these then they won’t be cautious enough in security matters.
In the preceding sections we saw the methodology of hacking, why should we aware of hacking
and some tools which a hacker may use. Now we can see what we can do against hacking or to
protect ourselves from hacking.
● The first thing we should do is to keep ourselves updated about those softwares
we and using for official and reliable sources.
● Educate the employees and the users against black hat hacking.
● Use every possible security measures like Honey pots, Intrusion Detection Systems, Firewalls
etc.
● every time make our password strong by making it harder and longer to be cracked.

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Bibliography
1. E. S. Raymond, The New Hacker’s Dictionary, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (1991).
2. S. Garfinkel, Database Nation, O’Reilly & Associates, Cambridge, MA (2000).
3. The first use of the term “ethical hackers” appears to have been in an interview with John
Patrick of IBM by Gary Anthens that appeared in a June 1995 issue of ComputerWorld.
4. P. A. Karger and R. R. Schell, Multics Security Evaluation: ulnerability Analysis, ESD-TR-
74-193, Vol. II, Headquarters Electronic Systems Division, Hanscom Air Force Base, MA (June
1974).
5. S. M. Goheen and R. S. Fiske, OS/360 Computer Security Penetration Exercise, WP-4467,
The MITRE Corporation, Bedford,
MA (October 16, 1972).
6. R. P. Abbott, J. S. Chen, J. E. Donnelly, W. L. Konigsford, and S. T. Tokubo, Security
Analysis and Enhancements of Computer
Operating Systems, NBSIR 76-1041, National Bureau of Standards, Washington, DC (April
1976).
7. W. M. Inglis, Security Problems in the WWMCCS GCOS System, Joint Technical Support
Activity Operating System Technical
Bulletin 730S-12, Defense Communications Agency (August 2, 1973).
8. D. Farmer andW.Z. Venema, “Improving the Security of Your Site by Breaking into It,”
originally posted to Usenet (December
1993); it has since been updated and is now available at
ftp://ftp.porcupine.org/pub/security/index.html#documents.
9. See http://www.faqs.org/usenet/.
10. Who can really determine who said something first on theInternet?
11. See http://www.cs.ruu.nl/cert-uu/satan.html.
12. This strategy is based on the ideal of raising the security of the whole Internet by giving
security software away. Thus, no one will have any excuse not to take action to improve security.
13. S. Garfinkel and E. Spafford, Practical Unix Security, First Edition, O’Reilly & Associates,
Cambridge, MA (1996).

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14. For a collection of previously hacked Web sites, see http:// www.2600.com/hacked_pages/ or
http://defaced.alldes.de. Be forewarned, however, that some of the hacked pages may contain
pornographic images.
15. In 1965, Intel cofounder Gordon Moore was preparing a speech and made a memorable
observation. When he started to graph data about the growth in memory chip performance, he
realized there was a striking trend. Each new chip contained roughly twice as much capacity as
its predecessor, and each chip was released within 18–24 months of the previous chip. In
subsequent years, the pace slowed down a bit, but
data density has doubled approximately every 18 months, and this is the current definition of
Moore’s Law.
16. J. O. Kephart, G. B. Sorkin, D. M. Chess, and S. R. White, “Fighting Computer Viruses,”
Scientific American 277, No. 5, 88–93 (November 1997).
17. See http://www.research.ibm.com/antivirus/SciPapers.htm for additional antivirus research
papers.
18. A. Boulanger, “Catapults and Grappling Hooks: The Tools and Techniques of Information
Warfare,” IBM Systems Journal 37, No. 1, 106–114 (1998).
19. R. R. Schell, P. J. Downey, and G. J. Popek, Preliminary Notes on the Design of Secure
Military Computer Systems, MCI-73-1,
ESD/AFSC, Hanscom Air Force Base, Bedford, MA (January 1973).

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