Hacking Phases

Hacking Phases, 5 Phases of Hacking -Chapter 1

Intoduction

We all are familiar with term "Hacking" and we all may be surprised by hacker activities in movies like Italian Job etc. But its hard to accept that hacking is not that easy.To hack something a hacker have to go through 5 phases which are unfamiliar to many of us.In this section I will guide you through the 5 phases of hacking.

Phases of Hacking

1. Reconnaissance 
 2.Scanning
 3.Gaining Tracks
 4.Maintaining Access 
 5.Clearing Tracks

Reconnaissance (Information Gathering)

This is the first phase of hacking, at this phase the hacker collect information about his target. Information includes target IP address,Network, Open ports.employee details. Example: Consider hacker as a thief what will a thief do if he want to steal something from a building (I am not a thief but am thinking as a thief) what will he do, he will watch the surrounding he will learn about the security of that building,and how to bypass that security, get access to the building, steal the valuable, escape after destroying the evidence.

Types of Reconnaissance

1. Passive Reconnaissance 2 2. Active Reconnaissance

Passive Reconnaissance : As the name indicates the attackers passively collect information about his target which means that he will not directly interact with the target. Example: Searching Job site to understand what kind of works are going on in company, search social medias for information.

Active Reconnaissance: In this information gathering method attacker get directly involved with the target. Example: Telephone call to the target to know details, or going inside to the building and making a face to face talk.

Tool used: Maltego (I will go through all the tools in upcoming sessions)

Scanning

Scanning is the pre - attack phase in which attacker scans the network.Network scanning refers to set of steps to identify open ports and service on the network.Objective of network scanning includes discover operating system, discover vulnerability of live host.

Tolls used: Nmap, Zenmap(I will go through all the tools in upcoming sessions)

Gaining Access

In this phase attacker obtain access to the operating system or application or network. After completing previous phase of hacking attacker make use of the data he collected and select an attacking method like Phishing,Session hijacking, DOS attack.

Tools used:Metasploit

Maintaining Access

After gaining access a hacker will try to maintain that access that is for the future access and use of that system. The attacker tries to gain administrative privilege.He may also create new admin account, and also find out which admin account is not used for long. The hacker also install rootkit , malware software to access admin privileges.

Clearing Tracks

The attackers will clear all the log in the victim device, and they will delete all entries they have made. To escape from getting caught attackers will change their MAC and IP address also clear log ,and may have uses proxy to hide the attackers real location.(MAC address changing and IP address spoofing will covered in next chapter)