Books on hacking pdf download

How to Prevent a Social Engineering Hack As a budding hacker, you are probably more interested in learning how to perform an attack rather than preventing it. However, as we said in the beginning, hacking can work both for good and for bad. It is important, therefore, that you understand how an attack can be prevented so that you can advise a client accordingly. This information will also help you perform more effective exploits. Organizations will generally use two techniques to prevent social engineers from exploiting their vulnerabilities: 1.

Developing and enforcing strict policies — The organization can create hierarchies of information, where users are permitted to access some but not all data. There should also be strict enforcement of wearing ID badges by all employees and consultants, and every guest must be escorted by security. When fired employees, contractors, or suppliers leave the premises, they should be stripped of their IDs.

The same password should also not be used for more than a set duration. Finally, in the event that a breach or suspicious behavior is detected, there must be a quick response by the security personnel. The most important aspect of any organizational policy is observance. The people involved must understand the requirements and follow them at all times. Training the users in security awareness — Most employees simply do not know what to do when they are faced with a social engineering attack.

There has to be some kind of user awareness and training in order to teach people how to identify and respond to hackers. This training should be continuous rather than a one-time event. The training program should be easy enough for those who are not technically-minded to understand. It is also important for upper managers to lead by example and undertake the training too.

Avoid giving out passwords to random people. Avoid sending your personal information via email or social media without verifying the identity of the receiver. Make sure that you know who is sending you a friend or connection request on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. Avoid downloading attachments from unidentified IP addresses, or clicking on links in spam mail.

Avoid the tendency to hover your cursor over an email link. Hackers are able to embed malware in a link and trigger a download the moment the mouse moves over it. Anti-malware is a good way to prevent this type of hack. The truth is that while social engineering can be a bit complicated to pull off, preventing it is also very difficult.

An organization cannot control all the people linked to it at all times, and as individuals, everyone has their own unique weakness. It is your job to find it and exploit it. Chapter 6: Hacking Passwords One of the most common ways to ensure the safety of your data is to password-protect it. We have become so used to putting passwords in all our digital devices that we actually believe that this measure is enough to keep our information safe.

However, the truth is very different. Passwords do a good job of keeping unauthorized users out of a system but as we all know, malicious hackers have been having a field day cracking passwords.

In most cases, a user may not even realize that someone else is also privy to their password. Passwords may make people feel safe, but there are a number of vulnerabilities within them that a hacker can easily exploit. Types of Password Vulnerabilities There are generally two types of password vulnerabilities: User and Technical.

User vulnerabilities User vulnerabilities are those weaknesses that result from lack of proper password policies or weak enforcement of such guidelines. For example, how many times have you seen someone use the same password for their laptop, smartphone, tablet, and all their digital devices?

There is no need to imagine because this is exactly what most people do! The majority of people simply find it too difficult to memorize every single password. We live in a world of convenience, so most people just look for the fastest and easiest ways to get things done. This usually results in people repeating the same password for all their accounts.

Unfortunately, this has simply made the job of hackers that much easier. With all the letters and numbers available for use, there are potentially three trillion password combinations, eight characters long. Yet you would be surprised at the number of people who choose weak and silly passwords just to make cramming them easier.

So what are some of the user vulnerabilities that a hacker can take advantage of? Passwords that are never changed. When was the last time you changed your Twitter or email password? Why go through the hassle, right? The same password being used in several different accounts across different networks and systems. Passwords that are too simple and are linked to your name, location, school, job, and so on.

Most users just look around the room when asked to create a password. Whatever they see is what they will use. Passwords that are long and complex are usually written on pieces of paper or stored in a file. As long as the location of the file is unsecured, it can get stolen. Technical vulnerabilities Exploiting user vulnerabilities is usually the first step for a hacker.

After that, you try to see whether there are any technical weaknesses you can take advantage of. The most common ones include: Failure to utilize applications that hide the password as it is being typed on the screen.

Though most applications immediately hide the characters being typed on the screen, some do not. Using programs or databases to store all your passwords, but failing to secure the database appropriately.

Some users store all their passwords in one MS Word, Access, or Excel file but fail to secure the document itself. Use of unencrypted databases that can be accessed by large numbers of unauthorized people. This is often the case with organizations. Use of weak encryption techniques by software vendors and developers. The majority of developers tend to have too much faith in the fact that their source codes are unknown.

A hacker who has enough computing power can even use tools that are designed to hack weak encryptions. Understanding Password Encryption A password is said to be encrypted when it is stored in a system using an encryption or one-way hash algorithm.

Once the password is hashed, all a user sees is a fixed-length encrypted string. The basic assumption is that once a password has been hashed, then it cannot be cracked. LINUX even goes further and adds a random value a salt to the hashed password, just to make it more secure.

The salt is what makes it possible for two people to use the exact same password yet generate totally different hashing values. There are a number of tools that can be used by hackers to crack passwords. These tools work by taking several well-known passwords, running them through a hashing algorithm, and then generating encrypted hashes.

Once the encrypted hashes have been generated, the tool compares them to the password that needs to be cracked. Of course, this process occurs at a very fast speed, and the password is cracked the moment the original hash and the encrypted hash match.

At times a hacker may find a password that is very complex and strong. Such passwords are quite difficult to crack, but with the right tools, enough time, and adequate patience, all passwords can be hacked. If you want to make sure that your system is safe from malicious hackers, you need to get the same tools that they use, search your system for vulnerabilities, and fix them.

Password-Cracking Tools There are a lot of advanced tools in the market right now for cracking passwords. Some are more popular than others due to their effectiveness across diverse systems and operating software. For example: Ophcrack — This tool is used for cracking passwords in Windows applications.

Cain and Abel — This is one of the most effective tools. It can be used for cracking hashes, VNC and Windows passwords, and many other applications. John the Ripper — This is definitely one of the most well-known and loved programs for cracking passwords. It combines a dictionary style of attack before launching a complete brute force attack.

Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery — This tool works extremely fast by incorporating a GPU video acceleration program and using thousands of networked computers simultaneously. It is able to crack Windows, Adobe, iTunes, and other applications. There are many other tools that you can use to hack passwords on a variety of applications, systems, and networks.

The most important thing is to understand how encryption works and how these tools can be used to overcome the encryption. Techniques for Cracking Passwords We have all tried at some point to crack a password.

It is likely that you used a conventional method rather than an advanced one. The techniques below are a combination of some old-school approaches and some high-tech methods. Guessing — This is probably one of the most overused techniques. It is also the simplest approach since most users tend to pick passwords that they will remember easily. All you need to do is use logic to guess what may have been used to create their password.

This technique works best when you are familiar with the target or have easy access to their personal data. Shoulder surfing — This is where you hand around a person as they key in their password. You can either watch the characters on the screen or memorize their keystrokes. It is important that you blend in to avoid detection, and be discreet about your moves. Social engineering — What if you could get a password by simply requesting for it?

The vast majority of people tend to believe what they are told especially if it is in an official setting. You can literally get access to employee records from anywhere these days, thanks to social media and company websites. A hacker can impersonate a staff member from the IT department of a company, call a user, and inform them of some technical hitches within the email system.

The hacker then requests that the user gives them their password so as to sort out the glitch. Dictionary attacks — This is where a program is used to create a list of plain-text dictionary words that can be compared to the actual password.

Brute force attacks — This should never be your first choice when it comes to cracking a password. It is an inefficient and extremely time- consuming technique. It is considered a fall-back option that is used when all other methods have failed. It is primarily used to crack passwords that are 6 characters or less, which is why you are always advised to make your passwords 8 characters or more.

The more characters a user puts into their password, the harder it is to crack using a brute-force attack. However, a brute force attack is very exhaustive, which means that sooner or later the password will be cracked. Unfortunately, nobody can predict when this will happen. Programs that use this technique include John the Ripper, Rarcrack, and Oracle. The above methods are the simplest and most commonly used ways to crack passwords.

There are other approaches that are available, for example, password probability matrix and rainbow tables.

However, for a beginner, these would be simply too complex to cover here. Using John the Ripper and pwddump3 to crack a password The pwdump3 tool is an effective way to extract hashed passwords from a Security Accounts Manager database. This procedure requires that you have administrative access. If you are trying to crack a Windows system, follow this procedure: 1.

On the computer, go to drive C. Make sure that you have a decompression tool such as WinZip installed on the computer. Download pwdump3 and John the Ripper and install them immediately. Extract them into the directory you created above. Type the command c: passwordsjohn craked. However, this process may take a very long time, depending on how complex the passwords are and the number of users in the system. Type the command [root local host yourcurrentfilename ] tar — zxf john — 1. Type the command:.

The output should be the same as that for the Windows procedure. Creating Secure Passwords When it comes to strengthening the security of data within an organization, it becomes necessary to hire a White Hat to help design better password policies. The aim is to teach the system users how to create more secure passwords as well as the effects of poor password security.

For individuals who want to secure their personal information, the same techniques can also apply in most cases. The criteria to be followed include: Forming passwords that combine upper and lowercase letters, numbers, symbols, and special characters.

Adding punctuation marks in-between separate words Deliberately misspelling words Changing words every six to 12 months. In the event of a security breach, all passwords are to be changed. Ensuring that passwords are of different lengths to make cracking more difficult. Storing all passwords in a password manager program rather than an unsecured MS Excel, Access, or Word file. Avoiding the tendency to recycle old passwords. Ensuring that passwords are not shared at all, not even with friends or work colleagues.

Locking the system BIOS using a password Establishing more advanced authentication methods, for example, digital certificates or smart cards. In order to hack a password, you have to understand what a strong or weak password looks like. Having the right knowledge of how to create a strong password will help you become a more effective hacker.

Chapter 7: Wireless Network Attacks Wireless networks have become so commonplace these days, but unfortunately, they are also very vulnerable to hacking threats. This is due to the fact that they involve the transmission of data through radio frequencies, thus making information vulnerable to interception. In cases where the encryption algorithm is weak or transmitted data is unencrypted, the situation becomes much worse. Unintentional association There are instances where one wireless network overlaps with another, allowing a user to unintentionally jump from one into the other.

If a malicious hacker takes advantage of this, they could acquire information contained in a network that they never intended to be on in the first place. Non-conventional networks These are networks that do not have the proper security that is usually reserved for laptops and access points.

They tend to be soft targets for hackers. They include wireless printers, barcode readers, Bluetooth devices, and handheld PDAs. Denial of Service attacks This type of attack involves sending hundreds or thousands of messages, commands, or requests to one access point.

In the end, the network is forced to crash, or users are prevented from accessing the network. Man-in-the-middle attacks This attack involves a hacker using their laptop to act as a soft access point and then luring users to it. The hacker connects their soft access point to the real access point through a different wireless card. Ankit Fadia. Carlos Sessa. Breaking into computer networks from the Internet. Roelof Temmingh.

Batch File Programming. Big Book of Windows Hacks. Preston Gralla. Hacking Bluetooth enabled mobile phones and beyond — Full Disclosure. Gray NeckHat. Encryption Algorithms Explained. Google Hacks. Tara Calishain. Hack Attacks Revealed. John Chirillo. Hack Proofing Your Network. Password recovery. Tech Viral. Home Books. Contents show. The Basics of Hacking and Penetration Testing.

Hacking Revealed. Ethical Hacking for Beginners. The Unrevealed Secrets of Hacking and Cracking. Web Hacking. Best Free Hacking E-Books. Topics Covered In the Hacking eBooks. After receiving a Bachelor of Science at … Read more. Disclaimer The contributor s cannot be held responsible for any misuse of the data. This repository is just a collection of URLs to download eBooks for free.