Common hacking tactics include vulnerability scanners that check for known weaknesses, spoofing attacks like phishing that masquerade as trusted systems, password cracking by repeatedly guessing passwords, packet sniffers that capture network data including passwords, social engineering by tricking users, key loggers that record keystrokes to steal passwords, Trojan horses that pose as one thing but do another like enabling backdoor access, and viruses that self-replicate to spread malware. Hackers use these tactics to access systems and steal confidential information without authorization.
3. Vulnerability scanner
A vulnerability scanner is a tool used to quickly check computers on a
network for known weaknesses. Hackers also commonly use port
scanners. These check to see which ports on a specified computer are
"open" or available to access the computer, and sometimes will detect
what program or service is listening on that port, and its version
number.
Spoofing attack (Phishing)
A spoofing attack involves one program, system, or website
successfully masquerading as another by falsifying data and thereby
being treated as a trusted system by a user or another program. The
purpose of this is usually to fool programs, systems, or users into
revealing confidential information, such as user names and passwords,
to the attacker.
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4. Password cracking
Password cracking is the process of recovering passwords from
data that has been stored in or transmitted by a computer
system. A common approach is to repeatedly try guesses for the
password.
Packet sniffer
A packet sniffer is an application that captures data packets, which can
be used to capture passwords and other data in transit over the
network.
5. Social engineering
A common practice for hackers who use this technique, is to contact
the system administrator and play the role of a user who cannot get
access to his or her system. Hackers who use this technique have to be
quite savvy and choose the words they use carefully, in order to trick
the system administrator into giving them information.
Key loggers
A key logger is a tool designed to record ('log') every keystroke on an
affected machine for later retrieval. Its purpose is usually to allow the
user of this tool to gain access to confidential information typed on the
affected machine, such as a user's password or other private data.
6. Trojan horses
A Trojan horse is a program which seems to be doing one thing,
but is actually doing another. A trojan horse can be used to set
up a back door in a computer system such that the intruder can
gain access later
Viruses
A virus is a self-replicating program that spreads by inserting
copies of itself into other executable code or documents.
Therefore, a computer virus behaves in a way similar to
a biological virus, which spreads by inserting itself into living
cells.
7. Password cracking
Password cracking is the process of recovering passwords from
data that has been stored in or transmitted by a computer
system. A common approach is to repeatedly try guesses for the
password.
Packet sniffer
A packet sniffer is an application that captures data packets, which can
be used to capture passwords and other data in transit over the
network.