Hacking/Introduction
From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection
Hacking details computer insecurity from a grass-roots perspective.
The Wikibook presumes some prior knowledge, but does try to fill in a minimal sketch of the playing field before delving into concepts; for example,
you won't learn assembly here, but you will find a basic explanation of the x86 CPU on a low level to aid in the explanation of attack techniques such as buffer overflows. We hope that as a learning tool this book can guide the reader to not only understand the basic concepts explained, but also to seek out further knowledge to fill in the gaps. Hackers can't just learn the skill and then leave it; in a few short months your attacks will fall into disuse as patches and new mitigation techniques come into play.
Hacking and the study of computer insecurity plays an important role in the protection of assets. No computer system or network achieves perfect security; even a system switched off with its hard drive removed sunken in a lead case in the bottom of a deep pool in an underground facility lacks security, as it guarantees integrity and confidentiality but completely sacrifices availability. As a security professional, you must understand the risks a network faces; you must, in essence, know how to bring the network down, to steal the data you want, and to falsify important information. With this information, you can begin to eliminate threats, leaving only those unknown to you and those that pose little to no real risk.
Being a hacker requires time, patience, and integrity. Your skills will obsolete themselves in short order; you can use them to quickly freshen up your knowledge base, but you can't rely on today's attacks to work on yesterday's systems, much less tomorrow's. You also can't ignore the defenses out there; attacking a Hardened Gentoo machine with vanilla buffer overflows simply won't work, no matter how many times you try. You must dedicate a good portion of your time to living the life of a hacker, learning everything you can.
Finally, and most importantly, all hackers must follow the Hacker Ethic. Those who cannot follow these basic rules generally fall into the category of 'assholes' and find themselves of very little value; but hey, the rest of us make a fortune finding, stopping, and arresting those assholes, so more power to you.
