Top Ten Hacking Techniques For Beginners

Hackers use different hacking techniques to get access to a victim's data. Unethical hacking is an illegal activity to get unauthorized information by modifying a system’s features and exploiting its loopholes. In this digital world, different hacking techniques give hackers wider opportunities to gain access to data. This unclassified information includes credit card details, email account details, and other personal information. Hackers work tirelessly online, trying and testing to find loopholes that they can exploit. It is necessary to apply security consciousness when browsing today, regardless of the site you are visiting.

It is important to know some of the hacking techniques. Knowledge of these can help you protect your data from hackers. This is educational material, as I don't intend to teach people the wrong things.

Top Hacking Techniques Hackers Use Online

1. Bait and switch.  Using the bait-and-switch hacking technique, the hacker runs a malicious program that the user believes to be authentic. This way, after installing the malicious program on your computer, the hacker gets unprivileged access to your computer.

Always download software from the manufacturer's website.

2. Cookie theft. The cookies of a browser keep our personal data, such as browsing history, usernames, and passwords. The cookies make it easy for browsers to capture data from users. This can include, for example, automatically logging in to a website. Once the hacker gets access to your cookie, he can even authenticate himself as you on a browser.

3. ClickJacking Attacks. ClickJacking is also known as UI Redress. In this attack, the hacker hides the real UI where the victim is supposed to click. In other words, the attacker hijacks the clicks of the victim that aren’t meant for the exact page, but for a page where the hacker wants you to be.

4. A virus, Trojan, worms, etc. Viruses or trojans, are malicious software programs that hackers use to execute different tasks on your computer. Hackers use Virus hacking techniques to destroy, slow down, or get certain information from a computer.

5. Phishing. Phishing is a hacking technique in which a hacker replicates the most-accessed sites and traps the victim by sending a spoofed link. Once the victim tries to log in or enter some data, the hacker gets the private information of the target victim using the trojan running on the fake site.

6. Eavesdropping (Passive Attacks). Unlike other attacks that are active in nature, using a passive attack, a hacker just monitors the computer systems and networks to gain some information. The motive behind eavesdropping is not to harm the system but to get some information without the owner's knowledge.

7. Fake WAP. Even just for fun, a hacker can use software to fake a wireless access point. This WAP connects to the official public WAP. Connecting to a fake WAP will expose the credentials of the victim. Hackers use this hacking technique to gain access to the victim's data.

8. Waterhole attacks. If you are a big fan of Discovery or National Geographic channels, you could relate easily to the waterhole attacks. To poison a place, in this case, the hacker hits the most accessible physical point of the victim. Hackers target the most-accessed physical place to attack the victim. That point could be a coffee shop, a cafeteria, etc. Once hackers are aware of your timing, they might create a fake Wi-Fi access point and change your most visited website to redirect them to you to get your personal information.

9. Denial of Service (DoS\DDoS). A Denial of Service attack is a hacking technique to take down a site or server by flooding that site or server. Hackers send lots of traffic that the server cannot process in real time. This will cause the server to crash and become vulnerable to attacks. For DDoS attacks, hackers often deploy botnets or zombie computers, which have the only job of flooding your system with request packets.

10. Keylogger. A keylogger is a simple software that records the key sequence and strokes of your keyboard into a log file on your machine. These log files might even contain your personal email IDs and passwords. Keyloggers are one of the main reasons why online banking sites give you the option to use their virtual keyboards.