ETHICAL HACKING

A SEMINAR REPORT

Submitted by
SANDEEP NAIR NARAYANAN

in partial fulfillment for the award of the degree

of
BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
in
COMPUTER SCIENCE & ENGINEERING

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
COCHIN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY,
KOCHI-682022

AUGUST 2008
 DIVISION OF COMPUTER ENGINEERING
SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
COCHIN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
KOCHI-682022

Certificate
Certified that this is a bonafide record of the seminar entitled
“ETHICAL HACKING”
done by the following student
SANDEEP NAIR NARAYANAN
th
of the VII semester,Computer Science and Engineering in the year 2008 in
partial fulfillment of the requirements to the award of Degree of Bachelor of
Technology in Computer Science and Engineering of Cochin University of
Science and Technology.

Mrs.Sheena Mathew Dr.David Peter S

Seminar Guide Head of the Department

Date:
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

At the outset, I thank the Lord Almighty for the grace, strength and hope to
make my endeavor a success.

I also express my gratitude to Dr. DAVID PETER S, Head of the

Department and my Seminar Guide for providing me with adequate facilities, ways
and means by which I was able to complete this seminar. I express my sincere
gratitude to him for his constant support and valuable suggestions without which the
successful completion of this seminar would not have been possible.

I thank Mrs.SHEENA MATHEW, my Seminar Guide for her boundless

cooperation and helps extended for this seminar. I express my immense pleasure and
thankfulness to all the teachers and staff of the Department of Computer Science and
Engineering, CUSAT for their cooperation and support.

Last but not the least, I thank all others, and especially my classmates and my
family members who in one way or another helped me in the successful completion of
this work.

SANDEEP NAIR NARAYANAN

 ABSTRACT

Today more and more softwares are developing and people are

getting more and more options in their present softwares. But many are

not aware that they are being hacked without their knowledge. One

reaction to this state of affairs is a behavior termed “Ethical Hacking"

which attempts to proactively increase security protection by identifying

and patching known security vulnerabilities on systems owned by other

parties.

A good ethical hacker should know the methodology chosen by the

hacker like reconnaissance, host or target scanning, gaining access,

maintaining access and clearing tracks. For ethical hacking we should

know about the various tools and methods that can be used by a black hat

hacker apart from the methodology used by him.

From the point of view of the user one should know atleast some of

these because some hackers make use of those who are not aware of the

various hacking methods to hack into a system. Also when thinking from

the point of view of the developer, he also should be aware of these since

he should be able to close holes in his software even with the usage of the

various tools. With the advent of new tools the hackers may make new

tactics. But atleast the software will be resistant to some of the tools.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES iii

LIST OF SYMBOLS iv
1. INTRODUCTION 01
1.1 Security 01
1.2 Need for Security 02
1.3 Hacking 03
1.4 Types of Hackers 04
1.5 Can Hacking Be Done Ethically? 04
1.6 Ethical Hacking 05
1.7 What do an Ethical Hacker do? 06
2. ETHICAL HACKING 08
2.1 Analogy with Building Robbing 08
2.2 Methodology of Hacking 09
2.3 Reconnaissance 09
2.3.1 Google 10
2.3.2 Samspade 10
2.3.3 Email Tracker and Visual Route 11
2.4 Scanning & Enumeration 14
2.4.1 War Dialing 14
2.4.2 Pingers 15
2.4.3 Port Scanning 15
2.4.4 Super Scan 16
2.4.5 Nmap 17
2.4.6 Enumeration 18
2.5 System Hacking 19
2.5.1 Password Cracking 19
2.5.2 Loftcrack 21
2.5.3 Privilege Escalation 22
2.5.4 Metasploit 22
2.5.6 Man in the Middle Attack 22

i
 2.6 Maintaining Access 23
2.6.1 Key Stroke Loggers 23
2.6.2 Trojan Horses & Backdoors 24
2.6.3 Wrappers 25
2.6.4 Elitewrap 25
2.7 Clearing Tracks 26
2.7.1 Winzapper 26
3. CONCLUSION 27
REFERENCES 29

ii
 LIST OF FIGURES

1. Fig 2.1 Samspade GUI 11

2. Fig 2.2 Email Tracker GUI 12
3. Fig 2.3 Visual Route GUI 13
4. Fig 2.4 SuperScan GUI 16
5. Fig 2.5 Nmap GUI 17
6. Fig 2.6 Loftcrack GUI 21

iii
 LIST OF SYMBOLS

TCP -Transmission Control Protocol

UDP -User Datagram Protocol
FTP -File Transfer Protocol
SNMP -Simple Network Management Protocol
GUI -Graphical User Interface
ICMP -Internet Control Message Protocol
HTML -Hyper Text Markup Language
IP -Internet Protocol
SID -Security Identifier
CPU -Central Processing Unit

iv
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1.INTRODUCTION

Ethical hacking ,also known as penetration testing or white-hat hacking,

involves the same tools, tricks, and techniques that hackers use, but with one major
difference that Ethical hacking is legal. Ethical hacking is performed with the target’s
permission. The intent of ethical hacking is to discover vulnerabilities from a hacker’s
viewpoint so systems can be better secured. It’s part of an overall information risk
management program that allows for ongoing security improvements. Ethical hacking
can also ensure that vendors’ claims about the security of their products are legitimate.

1.1 Security

Security is the condition of being protected against danger or loss. In the

general sense, security is a concept similar to safety. In the case of networks the
security is also called the information security. Information security means protecting
information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure,
disruption, modification, or destruction. Usually the security is described in terms of
CIA triads. The CIA are the basic principles of security in which “C” denotes the
Confidentiality , “I” represents Integrity and the letter “A” represents the Availability.

● Confidentiality

Confidentiality is the property of preventing disclosure of information

to unauthorized individuals or systems. This implies that the particular data should be
seen only by the authorized personals. Those persons who is a passive person should
not see those data. For example in the case of a credit card transaction, the authorized
person should see the credit card numbers and he should see that data. Nobody others
should see that number because they may use it for some other activities. Thus the
confidentiality is very important. Confidentiality is necessary for maintaining the
privacy of the people whose personal information a system holds.

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● Integrity

Integrity means that data cannot be modified without authorization.

This means that the data seen by the authorized persons should be correct or the data
should maintain the property of integrity. With out that integrity the data is of no use.
Integrity is violated when a computer virus infects a computer, when an employee is
able to modify his own salary in a payroll database, when an unauthorized user
vandalizes a web site, when someone is able to cast a very large number of votes in an
online poll, and so on. In such cases the data is modified and then we can say that
there is a breach in the security.

● Availability

For any information system to serve its purpose, the information must
be available when it is needed. Consider the case in which the data should have
integrity and confidentiality. For achieving both these goals easily we can make those
data off line. But then the data is not available for the user or it is not available. Hence
the data is of no use even if it have all the other characteristics. This means that the
computing systems used to store and process the information, the security controls
used to protect it, and the communication channels used to access it must be
functioning correctly.

All these factors are considered to be important since data lacking any of the
above characteristics is useless. Therefore security is described as the CIA trio.
Lacking any one of the CIA means there is a security breach.

1.2 Need for Security

Computer security is required because most organizations can be damaged by

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hostile software or intruders. Moreover security is directly related to business. This is

because if a company losses a series of credit card numbers of it`s customers then
many customers would be hesitant to go back to the same company and that particular
company will lose many customer and hence the business. There may be several
forms of damage which are obviously interrelated which are produced by the
intruders. These include:
● lose of confidential data
● damage or destruction of data
● damage or destruction of computer system
● loss of reputation of a company

There may be many more in the list due to security breaches. This means that
security is absolutely necessary.

1.3 Hacking

A hacker is a person who is interested in a particular subject and have an

immense knowledge on that subject. In the world of computers a hacker is a person
intensely interested in the arcane and recondite workings of any computer operating
system. Most often, hackers are programmers with advance knowledge of operating
systems and programming languages. Eric Raymond, compiler of “The New Hacker's
Dictionary”, defines a hacker as a clever programmer. A "good hack" is a clever
solution to a programming problem and "hacking" is the act of doing it. Raymond
lists five possible characteristics that qualify one as a hacker, which we paraphrase
here:
● A person who enjoys learning details of a programming language or system
● A person who enjoys actually doing the programming rather than just
theorizing about it
● A person capable of appreciating someone else's hacking
● A person who picks up programming quickly

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● A person who is an expert at a particular programming language or system

1.4 Types of Hackers

Hackers can be broadly classified on the basis of why they are hacking system
or why the are indulging hacking. There are mainly three types of hacker on this basis

● Black-Hat Hacker

A black hat hackers are individuals with extraordinary computing

skills, resorting to malicious or destructive activities. That is black hat hackers use
their knowledge and skill for their own personal gains probably by hurting others.
These black hat hackers are also known as crackers

● White-Hat Hacker

White hat hackers are those individuals professing hacker skills and
using them for defensive purposes. This means that the white hat hackers use their
knowledge and skill for the good of others and for the common good. These white hat
hackers are also called as security analysts.

● Grey-Hat Hackers

These are individuals who work both offensively and defensively at

various times. We cannot predict their behaviour. Sometimes they use their skills for
the common good while in some other times he uses them for their personal gains.

1.5 Can Hacking Be Done Ethically?

Due to some reasons hacking is always meant in the bad sense and hacking

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means black hat hacking. But the question is can hacking be done ethically? The
answer is yes because to catch a thief, think like a thief. That’s the basis for ethical
hacking. Suppose a person or hacker try to hack in to a system and if he finds a
vulnerability. Also suppose that he reports to the company that there is a vulnerability.
Then the company could make patches for that vulnerability and hence they could
protect themselves from some future attacks from some black hat hacker who tries to
use the same vulnerability. So unless some body try to find a vulnerability, it remains
hidden and on someday somebody might find these vulnerability and exploit them for
their own personal interests. So this can be done using ethical hacking.

1.6 Ethical Hacking

Ethical hacking is also known as penetration testing, intrusion testing or red

teaming. With the growth of the Internet, computer security has become a major
concern for businesses and governments. They want to be able to take advantage of
the Internet for electronic commerce, advertising, information distribution and access,
and other pursuits, but they are worried about the possibility of being “hacked.” At the
same time, the potential customers of these services are worried about maintaining
control of personal information that varies from credit card numbers to social security
numbers and home addresses. In their search for a way to approach the problem,
organizations came to realize that one of the best ways to evaluate the intruder threat
to their interests would be to have independent computer security professionals
attempt to break into their computer systems. This scheme is called Ethical Hacking.
This similar to having independent auditors come into an organization to verify its
bookkeeping records. This method of evaluating the security of a system has been in
use from the early days of computers. In one early ethical hack, the United States Air
Force conducted a “security evaluation” of the Multics operating systems for
“potential use as a two-level (secret/top secret) system”. With that they found out that
the particular software is better than the conventional systems. But it also brought out
some of its vulnerabilities.

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Successful ethical hackers possess a variety of skills. First and foremost, they
must be completely trustworthy. While testing the security of a client's systems, the
ethical hacker may discover information about the client that should remain secret. In
many cases, this information, if publicized, could lead to real intruders breaking into
the systems, possibly leading to financial losses. During an evaluation, the ethical
hacker often holds the “keys to the company,” and therefore must be trusted to
exercise tight control over any information about a target that could be misused. The
sensitivity of the information gathered during an evaluation requires that strong
measures be taken to ensure the security of the systems being employed by the ethical
hackers themselves: limited-access labs with physical security protection and full
ceiling-to-floor walls, multiple secure Internet connections, a safe to hold paper
documentation from clients, strong cryptography to protect electronic results, and
isolated networks for testing.

Ethical hackers also should possess very strong programming and computer
networking skills and have been in the computer and networking business for several
years. Another quality needed for ethical hacker is to have more drive and patience
than most people since a typical evaluation may require several days of tedious work
that is difficult to automate. Some portions of the evaluations must be done outside of
normal working hours to avoid interfering with production at “live” targets or to
simulate the timing of a real attack. When they encounter a system with which they
are unfamiliar, ethical hackers will spend the time to learn about the system and try to
find its weaknesses. Finally, keeping up with the ever-changing world of computer
and network security requires continuous education and review.

1.7 What do an Ethical Hacker do?

An ethical hacker is a person doing ethical hacking that is he is a security

personal who tries to penetrate in to a network to find if there is some vulnerability in

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the system. An ethical hacker will always have the permission to enter into the target
network.

An ethical hacker will first think with a mindset of a hacker who tries to get in
to the system. He will first find out what an intruder can see or what others can see.
Finding these an ethical hacker will try to get into the system with those information
in whatever method he can. If he succeeds in penetrating into the system then he will
report to the company with a detailed report about the particular vulnerability
exploiting which he got in to the system. He may also sometimes make patches for
that particular vulnerability or he may suggest some methods to prevent the
vulnerability.

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2.ETHICAL HACKING

Ethical hacking is a process in which an authenticated person,who is a

computer and network expert, attacks a security system on behalf of it`s owners a
security system on behalf of its owners, seeking vulnerabilities that a malicious
hacker could exploit. In order to test the system an ethical hacker will use the same
principles as the usual hacker uses, but reports those vulnerabilities instead of using
them for their own advantage.

2.1 Analogy with Building Robbing

The methodology of a hacker is similar to the one used for usual thefts. Lets
consider the case of a bank robbery. The first step will be to find information about
the total transaction of the bank, the total amount of money that may be kept in the
bank, who is the manager, if the security personals have a gun with them etc. This is
similar to the reconnaissance phase of hacking.

The next step will be to find the ways through which we can enter the
building, how many doors are present in the building, if there is a lock at each door
etc. This is similar to the second stage the scanning in which we will check which all
hosts are present, which all services are running etc.

The third step will be to enter the building which is similar to gaining access.
For entering in to a building we need some keys. Like that in case of network we need
some ids and passwords. Once we entered the building our next aim will be to make
an easier way inside when I come next time which is analogous to the next step
maintaining access. In the hacking case we use Trojans,back door worms etc like
placing a hidden door inside the building. Then the final step in which we will try to
hide the fact that I entered the building which is analogous to the clearing of tracks in

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the case of hacking

2.2 Methodology of Hacking

As described above there are mainly five steps in hacking like reconnaissance,
scanning, gaining access, maintaining access and clearing tracks. But it is not the end
of the process. The actual hacking will be a circular one. Once the hacker completed
the five steps then the hacker will start reconnaissance in that stage and the preceding
stages to get in to the next level.

The various stages in the hacking methodology are

● Reconnaissance
● Scanning & Enumeration
● Gaining access
● Maintaining access
● Clearing tracks

2.3 Reconnaissance

The literal meaning of the word reconnaissance means a preliminary survey to

gain information. This is also known as foot-printing. This is the first stage in the
methodology of hacking. As given in the analogy, this is the stage in which the hacker
collects information about the company which the personal is going to hack. This is
one of the pre-attacking phases. Reconnaissance refers to the preparatory phase where
an attacker learns about all of the possible attack vectors that can be used in their plan.

In this pre-attack phase we will gather as much as information as possible

which are publicly available. The information includes the domain names, locations
contact informations etc. The basic objective of this phase is to make a
methodological mapping of the targets security schema which results in a unique

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organization profile with respect to network and system involved. As we are dealing
with the Internet we can find many information here which we may not intend to put
it publicly. We have many tools for such purposes. These include tools like samspade,
email tracker, visual route etc. The interesting thing to note is that we can even use the
simple googling as a footprinting tool.

2.3.1 Google

Google is one of the most famous search engines used in the Internet. Using
some kind of specialized keywords for searching we can find many such information
that is put in publicly. For example if we use some keywords like “for internal use
only” followed by the targets domain name we may get many such useful
information. Some times even if the company actually removed from its site, it
sometimes get preserved in the Google`s caches.

Some times even the job advertisement in Internet can also be used in
footprinting. For example if some company is looking for professional who are good
in oracle database, this can be telling to the world that they are using th oracle
database in their company. This can be helpful for the hacker since he can look for the
vulnerabilities of that particular object.

One of the main advantages of Google is it`s advanced search option. The
advanced search have many options like searching for particular domain, documents
published after a particular period of time, files of particular format, particular
languages etc.

2.3.2 Samspade

Samspade is a simple tool which provides us information about a particular

host. This tool is very much helpful in finding the addresses, phone numbers etc

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Fig 2.1 Samspade GUI

The above fig 2.1 represents the GUI of the samspade tool. In the text field in
the top left corner of the window we just need to put the address of the particular host.
Then we can find out various information available. The information given may be
phone numbers, contact names, IP addresses , email ids, address range etc. We may
think that what is the benefit of getting the phone numbers, email ids, addresses etc.
But one of the best way to get information about a company is to just pick up the
phone and ask the details. Thus we can much information in just one click.

2.3.3 Email Tracker and Visual Route

We often used to receive many spam messages in our mail box. We don`t
know where it comes from. Email tracker is a software which helps us to find from
which server does the mail actually came from. Evey message we receive will have a
header associated with it. The email tracker use this header information for find the

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location.

Fig 2.2 Email tracker GUI

The above fig 2.2 shows the GUI of the email tracker software. One of the
options in the email tracker is to import the mail header. In this software we just need
to import the mails header to it. Then the software finds from which area does that
mail come from. That is we will get information like from which region does the
message come from like Asia pacific, Europe etc. To be more specific we can use
another tool visual route to pinpoint the actual location of the server. The option of
connecting to visual route is available in the email tracker. Visual route is a tool which
displays the location a particular server with the help of IP addresses. When we
connect this with the email tracker we can find the server which actually send the mail
. We can use this for finding the location of servers of targets also visually in a map.

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Fig 2.3 Visual route GUI

The above fig 2.3 depicts the GUI of the visual route tool. The visual route
GUI have a world map drawn to it. The software will locate the position of the server
in that world map. It will also depict the path though which the message came to our
system. This software will actually provide us with information about the routers
through which the message or the path traced by the mail from the source to the
destination.

We may wonder what is the use of finding the place from which the message
came. Suppose you got the email id of an employee of our target company and we
mailed to him telling that u are his greatest friend. Some times he may reply you
saying that he don`t know you. Then you use the email tracker and the visual route to

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find that he is not working from the office. Then you can understand that there are
home users in the company. We should understand the fact that the home users are not
protected like the employees working from office. This can be helpful for the hacker
to get in to the system.

2.4 Scanning & Enumeration

Scanning is the second phase in the hacking methodology in which the hacker
tries to make a blue print of the target network. It is similar to a thief going through
your neighborhood and checking every door and window on each house to see which
ones are open and which ones are locked. The blue print includes the ip addresses of
the target network which are live, the services which are running on those system and
so on. Usually the services run on predetermined ports. For example the web server
will be making use of the port no 80. This implies that if the port 80 is open in a
particular system we can understand that the targets web server is running in that host.
There are different tools used for scanning war dialing and pingers were used earlier
but now a days both could be detected easily and hence are not in much use. Modern
port scanning uses TCP protocol to do scanning and they could even detect the
operating systems running on the particular hosts.

2.4.1 War Dialing

The war dialers is a hacking tool which is now illegal and easier to find out.
War dialing is the practice of dialing all the phone numbers in a range in order to find
those that will answer with a modem. Earlier the companies used to use dial in
modems to which their employees can dial in to the network. Just a phone number is
enough in such cases. War dialing software makes use of this vulnerability. A war
dialer is a computer program used to identify the phone numbers that can successfully
make a connection with a computer modem. The program automatically dials a
defined range of phone numbers and logs and enters in a database those numbers that

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successfully connect to the modem. Some programs can also identify the particular
operating system running in the computer and may also conduct automated
penetration testing. In such cases, the war dialer runs through a predetermined list of
common user names and passwords in an attempt to gain access to the system.

2.4.2 Pingers

Pingers and yet another category of scanning tools which makes use of the
Internet Control Message Protocol(ICMP) packets for scanning. The ICMP is actually
used to know if a particular system is alive or not. Pingers using this principle send
ICMP packets to all host in a given range if the acknowledgment comes back we can
make out that the system is live. Pingers are automated software which sends the
ICMP packets to different machines and checking their responses. But most of the
firewalls today blocks ICMP and hence they also cannot be used.

2.4.3 Port Scanning

A port scan is a method used by hackers to determine what ports are open or in
use on a system or network. By using various tools a hacker can send data to TCP or
UDP ports one at a time. Based on the response received the port scan utility can
determine if that port is in use. Using this information the hacker can then focus their
attack on the ports that are open and try to exploit any weaknesses to gain access. Port
scanning software, in its most basic state, simply sends out a request to connect to the
target computer on each port sequentially and makes a note of which ports responded
or seem open to more in-depth probing. Network security applications can be
configured to alert administrators if they detect connection requests across a broad
range of ports from a single host. To get around this the intruder can do the port scan
in strobe or stealth mode. Strobing limits the ports to a smaller target set rather than
blanket scanning all 65536 ports. Stealth scanning uses techniques such as slowing
the scan. By scanning the ports over a much longer period of time you reduce the

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chance that the target will trigger an alert.

2.4.4 Super Scan

SuperScan is a powerful TCP port scanner, that includes a variety of additional

networking tools like ping, traceroute, HTTP HEAD, WHOIS and more. It uses multi-
threaded and asynchronous techniques resulting in extremely fast and versatile
scanning. You can perform ping scans and port scans using any IP range or specify a
text file to extract addresses from. Other features include TCP SYN scanning, UDP
scanning, HTML reports, built-in port description database, Windows host
enumeration, banner grabbing and more.

Fig 2.4 Superscan GUI

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The fig 2.4 show the GUI of the superscan. In this either we can search a
particular host or over a range of IP addresses. As an output the software will report
the host addresses which are running. There is another option port list setup which
will display the set of services which are running on different hosts.

2.4.5 Nmap

Nmap ("Network Mapper") is a free and open source utility for network
exploration or security auditing. Many systems and network administrators also find it
useful for tasks such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and
monitoring host or service uptime. The fig 2.5 shows the GUI of the Nmap.

Fig 2.5 Nmap GUI

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Nmap uses raw IP packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available
on the network, what services those hosts are offering, what operating systems they
are running, what type of packet filters or firewalls are in use, and dozens of other
characteristics. It can even find the different versions. It was designed to rapidly scan
large networks, but works fine against single hosts. We also have the option of
different types of scan like syn scan, stealth scan, syn stealth scan etc and using this
we can even time the scanning of different ports. Using this software we just need to
specify the different host address ranges and the type of scan to be conducted. As an
output we get the hosts which are live, the services which are running etc. It can even
detect the version of the operating system making use of the fact that different
operating systems react differently to the same packets as they use their own protocol
stacks.

2.4.6 Enumeration

Enumeration is the ability of a hacker to convince some servers to give them

information that is vital to them to make an attack. By doing this the hacker aims to
find what resources and shares can be found in the system, what valid user account
and user groups are there in the network, what applications will be there etc. Hackers
may use this also to find another hosts in the entire network.

A common type of enumeration is by making use of the null sessions. Many of

the windows operating systems will allow null sessions through which a hacker can
log on. A null session is a connection which uses no user name and password. That is
a null session is created by keeping the user name and password as null. Once the
hacker is logged in then he start enumeration by issuing some queries to find the list
of users and groups either local or active including SID`s, list of hosts, list of shares or
processes etc. One of the tools used after logging in using null sessions is NBTscan
which allows the hacker to scan the network this helps the hacker to get the user
name, resource shares etc. Other tools used are NAT(Netbios Auditing Tool),

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DumpSec etc.

Another way of enumerating is the enumeration of the SNMP(Simple Network

Management Protocol). Using this protocol the managing entities send messages to
the managed entities. In enumerating this SNMP protocol the hacker sniffs the
network to get the various information. The SNMP versions till 3 sends data as text
files so it is very easy to get data. While from SNMP version 3 there the data is
encrypted and send. But still we can enumerate those protocols and get information.
Some of the tools used for this are SNMPutil, IP Network Browser etc.

2.5 System Hacking

This is the actual hacking phase in which the hacker gains access to the
system. The hacker will make use of all the information he collected in the pre-
attacking phases. Usually the main hindrance to gaining access to a system is the
passwords. System hacking can be considered as many steps. First the hacker will try
to get in to the system. Once he get in to the system the next thing he want will be to
increase his privileges so that he can have more control over the system. As a normal
user the hacker may not be able to see the confidential details or cannot upload or run
the different hack tools for his own personal interest. Another way to crack in to a
system is by the attacks like man in the middle attack.

2.5.1 Password Cracking

There are many methods for cracking the password and then get in to the
system. The simplest method is to guess the password. But this is a tedious work. But
in order to make this work easier there are many automated tools for password
guessing like legion. Legion actually have an inbuilt dictionary in it and the software
will automatically. That is the software it self generates the password using the
dictionary and will check the responses.

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Many types of password cracking strategies are used today by the hackers
which are described below.

● Dictionary cracking

In this type of cracking there will be a list of various words like the persons
children`s name, birthday etc. The automated software will then make use of these
words to make different combinations of these words and they will automatically try
it to the system.

● Brute force cracking

This is another type of password cracking which does not have a list of pre
compiled words. In this method the software will automatically choose all the
combinations of different letters, special characters, symbols etc and try them
automatically. This process is of course very tedious and time consuming.

● Hybrid cracking

This is a combination of both dictionary and hybrid cracking technique. This

means that it will first check the combination of words in it inbuilt dictionary and if
all of them fails it will try brute force.

● Social Engineering

The best and the most common method used to crack the password is social
engineering. In this technique the hacker will come in direct contact with the user
through a phone call or some way and directly ask for the password by doing some
fraud.

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2.5.2 Loftcrack

This is a software from @stake which is basically a password audit tool. This
software uses the various password cracking methodologies. Loftcrack helps the
administrators to find if their users are using an easy password or not. This is very
high profile software which uses dictionary cracking then brute force cracking. Some
times it uses the precompiled hashes called rainbow tables for cracking the passwords.

Fig 2.6 Loftcrack GUI

The fig 2.6 given above shows the GUI of loftcrack. Usually in windows the
passwords are stored in the sam file in the config directory of system 32. This file
operating system protected that is we cannot access this file if the operating system is
running. But with this loftcrack we just need to run a wizard to get the details of the
passwords stored in the sam file. As seen from the figure the software used the
dictionary of 29156 words in this case. It also got options to use the brute force and

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pre-compiled hashes.

2.5.3 Privilege escalation

Privilege escalation is the process of raising the privileges once the hacker get
in to the system. That is the hacker may get in as an ordinary user. And now he tries to
increase his privileges to that of an administrator who can do many things. There are
many types of tools available for this. There are some tools like getadmin attaches the
user to some kernel routine so that the services run by the user look like a system
routine rather than user initiated program. The privilege escalation process usually
uses the vulnerabilities present in the host operating system or the software. There are
many tools like hk.exe, metasploit etc. One such community of hackers is the
metasploit.

2.5.4 Metasploit

Metasploit is actually a community which provides an online list of

vulnerabilities. The hacker can directly download the vulnerabilities and directly use
in the target system for privilege escalation and other exploits. Metasploit is a
command line tool and is very dangerous as the whole community of black hat
hackers are contributing their own findings of different vulnerabilities of different
products.

2.5.5 Man in the Middle Attack

In this type of system hacking we are not actually cracking the password
instead we let all the traffic between a host and a client to go through the hacker
system so that he can directly find out the passwords and other details. In the man in
the middle attack what a hacker does is he will tell to the user that he is the server and
then tell the server that I am the client. Now the client will send packets to the hacker

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thinking that he is the server and then the hacker instead of replying forwards a copy
of the actual request to the actual server. The server will then reply to the hacker
which will forward a copy of the reply to the actual client. Now the client will think
that he got the reply from the server and the server will think that it replied to the
actual client. But actually the hacker,the man in the middle, also have a copy of the
whole traffic from which he can directly get the needed data or the password using
which he can actually hack in.

2.6 Maintaining Access

Now the hacker is inside the system by some means by password guessing or
exploiting some of it`s vulnerabilities. This means that he is now in a position to
upload some files and download some of them. The next aim will be to make an
easier path to get in when he comes the next time. This is analogous to making a small
hidden door in the building so that he can directly enter in to the building through the
door easily. In the network scenario the hacker will do it by uploading some
softwares like Trojan horses,sniffers, key stroke loggers etc.

2.6.1 Key Stroke Loggers

Key stroke loggers are actually tools which record every movement of the
keys in the keyboard. There are software and hardware keystroke loggers the directly
records the movement of keys directly. For maintaining access and privilege
escalation the hacker who is now inside the target network will upload the keystroke
logging softwares in to the system.

The software keystroke loggers will stay as a middle man between the
keyboard driver and the CPU. That is all the keystroke details will directly come to
the software so that the tool keeps a copy of them in a log and forwarding them to the
CPU.

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2.6.2 Trojan Horses & Backdoors

A Trojan horse is a destructive program that masquerades as a benign

application. Unlike viruses , Trojan horses do not replicate themselves but they can be
just as destructive. One of the most insidious types of Trojan horse is a program that
claims to rid your computer of viruses but instead introduces viruses on to your
computer. The term comes from a Greek story of the Trojan war in which the Greeks
fie a giant wooden horse to their foes, the Trojans, ostensibly as a peace offering. But
after the Trojans drag the horse inside their city walls, Greek soldiers sneak out of the
horse`s hollow belly and open the city gates, allowing their compatriots to pour in and
capture Troy. Generally a Trojan is a malware that runs programs that you are either
unaware of or don`t want to have tunning on your system.

The hackers will place these Trojan softwares inside the network and will go
out. Then after sometimes when he come back the Trojan software either authenticate
the hacker as a valid user or opens some other ports for the hacker to get in. There are
many genere of Trojans like
● password sending/capturing
● FTP Trojans
● Keystroke captures Trojans
● Remote access Trojans
● Destructive Trojans
● Denial of Service Trojans
● Proxy Trojans

The Trojans can be introduced through chat clients, email attachments,physical

access to systems,file sharing,wrappers and through other P2P softwares.

There are many examples for trojans like Tini, netcat, subseven, barkorffice
etc. Tini is a very tiny Trojan which just listens to the port 7777. so after introducing

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the tini the hacker can send his commands to that port number. Netcat is another
Trogen which have the ability to connect to any local port and could start out bound
or inbound TCP or UDP connections to or from any ports. It can even return the
command shell to the hacker through which the hacker can access the system.
Subseven and barkorffice are other Trojans which have a client server architecture
which means that the server part will reside in the target and the hacker can directly
access the server with the knowledge of the user.

2.6.3 Wrappers

In the maintaining access phase in the hacking we usually upload some

software in to the system so that for some needs. In order to keep the softwares and
other data to be hidden from the administrator and other usual user the hackers usually
use wrapper software to wrap their contents to some pictures, greeting cards etc so
that they seem usual data to the administrators. What the wrapper softwares actually
does is they will place the malicious data in to the white spaces in the harmless data.

There are some tools like blindslide which will insert and extract the data into
just jpeg or bmp pictures. Actually what they does is that they will insert the data into
the white spaces that may be present in the files. The most attractive thing is that most
of the time they will not alter the size of the file.

2.6.4 Elitewrap

This is a very notorious wrapper software. Elitewrap is a command line tool

which wraps one or more Trojans in to a normal file. After the processing the product
will look like one program while it will contain many softwares. The speciality of this
is that we can even make the Trojans,packed in to it, to get executed when the user
open that file. For example consider the case in which the netcat Trojan is packed to a
flash greeting card. Now when the user opens the card, in the background, the netcat

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will start working and will start listening to some ports which will be exploited by the
hackers.

2.7 Clearing Tracks

Now we come to the final step in the hacking. There is a saying that
“everybody knows a good hacker but nobody knows a great hacker”. This means that
a good hacker can always clear tracks or any record that they may be present in the
network to prove that he was here. When ever a hacker downloads some file or
installs some software,its log will be stored in the server logs. So inorder to erase
those the hacker uses man tools.

One such tool is windows resource kit`s auditpol.exe. This is a command line
tool with which the intruder can easily disable auditing. There are some other tools
like Eslave which directly clears all the event logs which tell the administrator that
some intruder has come in. Another tool which eliminates any physical evidence is the
evidence eliminator. Sometimes apart from the server logs some other informations
may be stored temporarily. The Evidence Eliminator deletes all such evidences.

2.7.1 Winzapper

This is another tool which is used for clearing the tracks. This tool will make a
copy of the log and allows the hackers to edit it. Using this tool the hacker just need to
select those logs to be deleted. Then after the server is rebooted the logs will be
deleted.

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3.CONCLUSION

One of the main aim of the seminar is to make others understand that there are
so many tools through which a hacker can get in to a system. There are many reasons
for everybody should understand about this basics. Lets check its various needs from
various perspectives.

● Student

A student should understand that no software is made with zero

vulnerabilities. So while they are studying they should study the various possibilities
and should study how to prevent that because they are the professionals of tomorrow.

● Professionals

Professionals should understand that business is directly related to

security. So they should make new software with vulnerabilities as less as possible. If
they are not aware of these then they wont be cautious enough in security matters.

● Users

The software is meant for the use of its users. Even if the software
menders make the software with high security options with out the help of users it
can never be successful. Its like a highly secured building with all doors open
carelessly by the insiders. So users must also be aware of such possibilities of hacking
so that they could be more cautious in their activities.

In the preceding sections we saw the methodology of hacking, why should we aware
of hacking and some tools which a hacker may use. Now we can see what can we do
against hacking or to protect ourselves from hacking.

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● The first thing we should do is to keep ourselves updated about those

softwares we and using for official and reliable sources.
● Educate the employees and the users against black hat hacking.
● Use every possible security measures like Honey pots, Intrusion Detection
Systems, Firewalls etc.
● Every time make our password strong by making it harder and longer to be
cracked.
● The final and foremost thing should be to try ETHICAL HACKING at
regular intervals.

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REFERENCES

1. “http://netsecurity.about.com”
2. “http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com”
3. “http://www.eccouncil.org”
4. “http://www.ethicalhacker.net”
5. “http://www.infosecinstitute.com”
6. “http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com”

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