Black hat
A Black Hat Hacker is a hacker who "violates computer security for little reason beyond maliciousness or for personal gain" (Moore, 2005). Black Hat Hackers form the stereotypical, illegal hacking groups often portrayed in popular culture, and are "the epitome of all that the public fears in a computer criminal". Black Hat Hackers break into secure networks to destroy data or make the network unusable for those who are authorized to use the network. They choose their targets using a two-pronged process known as the "pre-hacking stage".
- Part 1: Targeting
- The hacker determines what network to break into during this phase. The target may be of particular interest to the hacker, either politically or personally, or may pick one at random. Next, they will port scan a network to determine if it is vulnerable to attacks, which is just testing all ports on a host machine for a response. Open ports—those that do respond—will allow a hacker to access the system.
- Part 2: Research and Information Gathering
- It is in this stage that the hacker will visit or contact the target in some way in hopes of finding out vital information that will help them access the system. The main way that hackers get desired results from this stage is from Social Engineering, which will be explained below. Aside from Social Engineering, hackers can also use a technique called Dumpster Diving. Dumpster Diving is when a hacker will literally dive into a dumpster in hopes to find documents that users have thrown away, which may contain information a hacker can use directly or indirectly, to help them gain access to a network.
- Part 3: Finishing The Attack
- This is now the stage when the hacker will invade the preliminary target that he/she was planning to attack or steal, this is also the stage where many of the "hackers" are caught, lured in or grabbed by any data also known as a Honeypot (a trap set up by computer security personnel).
- Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_%28computer_security%29
