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.

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 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.
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
● Loss of reputation of a company
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 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

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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.
● Grey-Hat Hackers :
These are individuals who work both offensively and efensively 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

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 General hacking

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ETHICAL HACKING
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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.

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 into 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 into the system. He may also sometimes make patches for that
particular vulnerability or he may suggest some methods to
prevent the vulnerability.

Required Skills of an Ethical Hacker :

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• 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.

History Highlits :

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.

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:

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 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 sys-
tems 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.

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Methodology of Hacking

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 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
● 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
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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.

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.
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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 into 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 it self 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 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.
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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
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levels. The nature of these tools differ widely. Here we describe some of the
widely used tools in ethical hacking.
· 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

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.

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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.

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.

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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

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.
Some other important tools used are:
· War Dialing
· Pingers
· Super Scan
· Nmap etc…

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 *****************

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.

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 *****************

Career In ethical Hacking

Educational Qualification :
For becoming an ethical hacker , good computer skill rather than program-
ming skill is necessary.
1. Deep knowledge about local area networks and internet connectivity
procedure.
2. The skill to access the protected sites and servers.
3. The skill to broke passwords and authentication which a server provides
to the clients.

These are the basic knowledge to have the hacker spirit

Institutes that provide Ethical Hacking Course :

Hacker School

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Several technology has been implemented by hacker school for motivated
Training courses that provides Information Security services and EC-
Council Certifications such as EC-Council Certified Ethical
Hacker (CEH) Certification, EC-Council Certified Security Analyst Certi-
fication (ECSA), Licensed Penetration Tester (LPT), Computer Hacking
Forensic Investigator (CHFI) and
Hacker School Certifi- cations such as
HSCISA, HSCBE, HSCNSP and
HSCFI to its enormous client base
which includes students and professionals.

Address: Hacker School – Hyderabad

Milestone: Near Sarathi Studios, DTDC Lane, Plot No. 1288, First Floor,
Rajendra Nilayam, Yella Reddy Guda, Hyderabad, A.P, India – 500073.

Email: [email protected]

Xgenios IT solu- tions

Xgenios IT solutions is the sub group of ‘Flex image creative studios’, in-
dustry demand training are provided for students who are interested in inte-
rior designing, Android, iOS, CCNA, HARDWARE&NETWORK-
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ING, PHP, .NET ,Ethical hacking, 3Ds max, Web designing & graphic
designing.
XGenios provides reliable services to the clients.
Address : Konark Plaza Room no.4-101,3rd floor, Beside Rajdhani Theatre,
Above sanjeevini Pharmacy, Durganagar, Dilsukhnagar main road, Hyder-
abad -500060.
Website: www.xgenios.com

There are many training institutes like NIIT, JetKing etc which provide CEH
Course

Some of the best Ethical Hacking Institutes in Pune are as follows :

Netconclave Systems
46, Lane 6, Shahu Colony,, Near Cummins Engineering College, Karve Nagar
Pune
09890925750
www.netconclave.com/

INS Computer Institute

Office No 10, Kamla Regency,Dyaneshwar Paduka Chowk,Opp
Pune
0880 6113900
Ccna , rhce, mcitp, ethical hacking @INS ( Institute Of Network & Security )
ins.ind.in/

Aryan Technologies:
303, 3rd Flr, Pinnacle Pride, 1545, Sadashiv Peth, opp Cosmos Bank, Tilak Road,
Near Hotel Durvankur
Pune
09975960000
www.aryantech.in

Payatu Labs Pvt. Ltd.

2nd Floor , Oz Plaza ,, Viman Nagar
Pune
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09225532322
www.howtohack.co.in/

Radhika Eduworld
Office 206, Bramha Majestic, C3 Wing,, NIBM Road, Kondhwa
Pune
020 6646 4498
www.radhikaworld.com

Sedulity Solutions & Technologies

Computer Department, 2nd Floor
568, Kesari Wada, Narayan Peth,, Pune
09860201117
www.sedulitygroups.com

Akandum Technologies
Unit 11, B Wing, Bilwakunj Apartments, Above IDEA Office, Bhandarkar Insti-
tute Road,
Pune
www.akandum.com

APPIN KOTHRUD
D1+D2, Sakhai Plaza, Near Kothrud Telephone Exchange, Chowk,
DP Rd, Bhelkenagar, Kothrud, Pune
09730917171

Akandum Technologies
Unit 11, B Wing, Bilwakunj Apartments, Above IDEA Office, Bhandarkar Insti-
tute Road,
Pune
091 58 909030
www.akandum.com/

Fees Structure & Duration :

Fee Structure totally depends on the duration of Course and on the choosing
Institute and if taking about Duration ... then it may vary from 45 days
Training to 12 months and even More.

The more you'll Learn The More you'll get

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But the best on is to go for 6 months training which may cost upto 30,000/-
Note : Fee structure may vary from 6000 to 65000 in some institutes .

Career :
Gorge Jason, vice-president, Comguard Networks, in an interview to
Diptiman Dewan elaborates on ethical hacking as a rapidly growing career
option.
Industry status
Last year ethical hacking was estimated to be a US$ 3.8 billion industry in
the US alone. According to Nasscom, India will require at least 77,000
ethical hackers every year whereas we are producing only 15,000 in a year,
currently. Ethical hacking is growing at a tremendous pace and offers a
plethora of lucrative job opportunities.
Growth areas
The information security industry is going at a current worldwide growth
rate of 21%. Frost & Sullivan
have estimated that there are
2.28 million information security professionals worldwide which is expected
to increase to nearly 4.2 million by 2015. The need for information security
for security compliance in India is mandatory for all companies with an IT
backbone. The requirement for such personnel is especially high with organ-
isations in the IT/ITES space.
Remuneration
A fresher may work as an intern for a couple of months and can start with a
minimum of Rs 2.5 lakh per annum. With one year of experience, one can
expect upto Rs 4.5 lakh per annum. Those with work experience five years
or more can get from 10-12 lakh per annum.

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 Conclusion
One of the main aims of this project is to make others
understand that there are so many tools through which a hacker can get into
a system. Let’s check its various needs from various perspectives.
● Student

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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
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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Security Tips

Phishing Attack
To save yourself from unauthorised access of your personal computer , there
is need of some basic knowledge of computer security which are as follows :

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Phishing Attack : Make a fake page just like a original page to steal a
personal information like password , credit card details etc.
For example : Original website name : www.gmail.com
Fake Page : www.gmmail.com

Firewall :
Always enable the firewall of your computer. It saves our computer to
unauthorized access of any person.

Pad Lock :
Whenever we open any banking website then there is a sign of lock which
indicates that site is secured. So before logging into online banking , ensure
yourself that there is a sign of pad lock.

Antivirus
Always update your antivirus to save PC from malware , Trojan , Horse ,
Spyware etc.

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