How To Become an Ethical Hacker – Learn Hacking Step By Step

How to become a hacker is the question the correct answer to which is still correctly not known to all. Even today, whenever people hear the word ‘Ethical Hacking’ they interpret it as an illegal and lawful trespassing activity into someone else’s system, which is known as ‘Black Hat Hacking’. So, here in this blog article we will guide you through the process on how to become a successful ethical hacker, tell you about the basics and important hacking techniques, make you understand how hackers think & strategize and how to become a pro within the ethical hacking community you are part of. We have divided the ethical hacking learning process into three parts, starting from the fundamentals to the techniques.

What is Ethical Hacking ?

Ethical Hacking is the process of penetrating into the system to find out vulnerabilities, threats, etc. In general ethical hacking is mainly performed to improve the security of the network. Normally ethical hackers utilize the same methods by the malicious hackers but the ethical hackers do everything with authorized person’s permission. However, Ethical Hacking is performed to improve the security of the systems from attacks done by malicious users. Ethical hackers utilize their skills and some advanced methods to test organizations’ IT security. An ethical hacker’s also known as black hat hackers and they find security exposures and other issues in insecure system configurations to ensure the overall security of the system.

Ethical hackers highly help companies to ensure their IT security measures. With the advanced technology, they improve system effectiveness. After completion of the evaluation of the organizations’ systems, the experts also report back to company leaders based on the vulnerable areas, insecure applications, etc and also provide advice on how to improve security posture to eliminate cyber attacks.

How To Become a Hacker in Just 10 Steps?

In relation to security of computer and information systems, a hacker is a person who focuses on security mechanisms of computer and network systems in order to locate and fix the loop holes if there is any. There are many expert programmers and networking wizards present in the market who are part of communities and shared cultures that finds its history back in the decades to the first time-sharing minicomputers and the earliest ARPANET experiments. Members of such cultures or communities were the first established hackers. Silently breaking into computers and phone systems with the help of devious tricks have come to symbolize hacking in popular cultures and communities. But, these famous cultures are much more complicated and moralistic than most of us know.

Below mentioned steps will make you understand the whole process of how to become a hacker:

1. Run on OS which is similar to UNIX, like Linux

• UNIX as well as UNIX-like OS are the operating systems of the Internet. Though a person can learn how to use Internet without knowing UNIX, but he cannot be a successful hacker without understanding UNIX. Because of this must learn criteria, the hacker communities today revolve around UNIX. There are various OS, which are similar to UNIX, the most popular being Linux, which a person can run alongside Microsoft Windows on the same machine. Learn how to hack for beginners in this part.
• The best way to start the installation of UNIX in the system is to boot up a device called a live CD or USB, which is a distribution that runs entirely off a CD or USB without the need of modifying the hard disk. Apart from Linux, there are few other OS similar to UNIX, such as the BSD systems. The BSD systems that are the most popular ones are FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and DragonFly BSD. Just like Linux, all the above mentioned BSDs are open source.
• A UNIX operating system that is available under FreeBSD is MacOS on Darwin. Darwin is available on “ http://opensource.apple.com” and is completely free & open source. UNIX being the core of the system and because of the growing popularity of MacOS, many people who had Linux applications have now ported to MacOS. Those programs are available with a package manager like Homebrew, Fink, or MacPorts. Or else, a person can just run Linux on a Mac alongside MacOS.
• A person is also free to run operating systems like Open Indiana, which is based on the open source release of the Solaris operating system before it was taken over by Oracle and had it converted into closed source. Linux applications does not find compatibility with Open Indiana and Solaris that are made on UNIX System V. It is suggested that MacOS, BSD or Linux must only be used, as they are more popular and have more programs available for them.

2. Learn HTML

• If programming is new to a person, then he must learn basic HyperText Mark-Up Language because proficiency in HTML is a must for any hacker.
• A person in his browser must open the page source information in order to examine the HTML, for example- Go to Web Developer > Page Source in Firefox and learn the code.
• HTML can be written in a basic word processing program like Notepad or Simple Text, which can be saved as ‘yourCoolFileName.HTML.’ Now, these saved files can be uploaded on a browser and the coder can see his work translated.

3. Gain the knowledge of Programming

• If a person’s ultimate goal is to become a master ethical hacker, then he will be needing more than basic English for writing his masterpiece. Programming languages play an important part in Hacker’s life.
• Python is the best language for hacking because it cleanly designed, well documented, relatively kind to beginners, compelling, flexible and well-suited for large projects. It is considered as a good first language in programming.
• For advanced level of programming, the next best alternative language available is Java.
• Similar to Python but different from Java is JavaScript as it is a C-based language and completely new-user friendly. Substitute of JavaScript is PHP C, which is a core language for UNIX. If a programmer knows C, then learning C++ will be a cakewalk for him because it is closely related to C.
• A smart person is one who starts by using good platforms like Backtrack 5 R3, Kali or Ubuntu 12.04LTS.

4. Be a Creative Thinker

• After learning the basic skills of hacking, an aspiring hacker must start thinking artistically. Established hackers are like engineers, artists and philosophers and brought together inside one person.
• True hackers ‘work as intensively as they play and play as intensively as they work.’ For them, the boundaries between “Play”, “Work”, “Science”, and “Art” all tend to disappear or merge into a high-level creative playfulness.
• To be hackers must read science fiction and attend science fiction conventions, which serves as an opportunity to meet hackers and proto-hackers.
• They can even learn martial arts because the kind of mental discipline required in martial arts is the same as the one required in hacking. Those types of martial arts which emphasize on enhancing mental discipline, relaxed awareness, controlling power, rather than raw strength, athleticism, or physical awareness. Tai Chi is best suitable for hackers.

5. Make a habit of Solving Problems

• Hackers have a belief that sharing information is a moral responsibility, so whenever anyone solves a problem, they should make the information public to help those who share the same problem.
• No hacker is ever obligated to give away all his creative products. But, the hackers who does it are the ones who get the highest respect from their co-hackers.
• Reading older pieces, such as the “Jargon File”, “Hacker Manifesto” by The Mentor is recommended.

6. Absorb Fight Authority

• The biggest enemies of a hacker are boredom, drudgery, and authoritarian figures who with the help of censorship and secrecy strangle the freedom of information. Monotony pulls apart a hacker from hacking.
• A hacker must learn to embrace hacking as a way of life, which means rejecting the “normal” concepts of work and property and choosing to fight for equality and common knowledge.

7. Be Competent

Anyone who spends hours on Reddit and write up a random cyberpunk username can also pose as a hacker. But, the Internet is a great equalizer who values competence over ego and posture. An aspiring hacker must sharpen his skills and craft rather than polishing their image because this would give them fetch them respect and not the superficial things that we think of “hacking” in popular culture.

8. Start Writing Open Source Software

New hackers must start by writing programs that are fun and useful from other hacker’s point of view. And, they must also give away their program sources to the whole hacker community for use.

9. Promote Valuable Information

Another characteristic of a good hacker is that he must be able to collect and filter useful and interesting information into web pages or documents, such as Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) lists, and make those available to all. Those who maintain technical FAQs are respected at the same level as the open-source authors.

10. Helps in keeping the Organization Working

Popular hacking culture is run by Volunteers who do some very important but unglamorous tasks, such as administering mailing lists, moderating newsgroups, developing RFCs, and other technical standards. Doers of these jobs earns a lot of respect as these are huge time consumer and is not as much fun as playing with codes.

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