CRACKING REGEDIT & TASKMGR

Introduction:

First let’s start with some question and answers:
Q) What is cracking will be the first and foremost question...???
A) The answer is simple .....It’s an art which needs not only reading but also training.
Computer is a practical subject and it needs to be practiced regularly. So is cracking too....Actually to crack means to modify the program to cater our needs and not the programmer's needs. Crackers have the job of unlocking the shareware
or evaluate shareware for your lifetime without paying the author. Trial ware or shareware are programs that demand registration. There are many types some softwares use name/serial no protection, ome softwares allow them to be evaluated
for 30 days, or 25 uses ,etc.....are some examples.

Q) Who are hackers ? && Who are crackers ?
A) Hackers are different from crackers ,hackers are people who
steal passwords from a network .They have good programming knowledge in perl,python which are not only good hacking languages but also good programming landuages. They know the in and out of the OS.(example = Windows). They know the holes in the system and they know how to safeguard their own computer since they attack and exploit others.....

A CR@cKer is one who registers a shareware or trialware without paying the software authors.He is not only capable of registering shareware but also knows to program in VB , C, VC++ and assembly ofcourse. This programming knowledge is regarding elite crackers and not to newbies. But someday or the other newbies develop into a elite crackers in course of time and learn these things.

Q) What you need to know to crack.....???
A) Well here we go ,
You need to know basic terms in assembly and some knowledge about hex values of the
jumps will do ..... you must also have some programming knowledge in C or VB for coding Key Generators. You will also need a good working brain along with certain tools especially OllyDbg 1.10.

Note: If you already know the basics of Assembly you may go directly to Page 4.


Q) What are registers ?
A) Registers are variables which are stored in your processor. The processor uses these variables for basic mathematical and logical operations. The mostly used registers are : eax, ebx, ecx and edx. Sometimes you may also see registers like edi, esi, esp, ebp.


Q) What are Flags ?
A) Flags are Boolean variables (get 0 or 1 values). Flags are used by the processor for internal logical and mathimatical operations. There are two important flags such as ZERO flag and NON ZERO flags.

Q) What does the term Code Flow mean?
A) When you are analysing a piece of code, you must understand that the processor is actually quite simple, it simply follows the basic instructions, line by line.

Q) What is a call ?
A) The syntax for a call should be like this
//SYNTAX//
.XXXXXXXX call ZZZZZZZZ // where .XXXXXXXX is the offset of the call and ZZZZZZZZ is the line no to be called
A "call" instruction calls the specified line no( here it is ZZZZZZZZ )

Q) What is "cmp" ?
A)I think you should be guessed it by now......well if not here's the answer ...... for you....
It means compare and compares two registers. Its syntax must look like this
//SYNTAX//
.XXXXXXXX cmp eax,edx (or any other register)


Q) What is an offset ?
A) Its quite simple to answer this one because it means a line no or address which appears in OllyDbg "@ Offset bla..bla..h"
where bla..bla.. is the offset and 'h' means hex.


Q) What is a jump?
A) A jump is an instruction which is very similar to a call except for the word....Pls substitute "Jump" in place of "Call" in the syntax
and it must be fine only now follows a jump bombing....gEt re@Dy !!!!!


Q) What is the OllyDbg ?
A) It is a disassembler / debugger which is used for debugging/disassembling programs.(both 16 bit and 32 bit windows programs)
For newbies OllyDgb is recommended by most crackers.I surely believe that OllyDgb is always better than the best. Thanks to Oleh Yuschuck

ASM Codes :

Asm Explanation
****** ***************
je jump equal >>> hex value is 74
jne jump not equal >>>hex value is 75
jnb jump not below >>>hex value is 73
jna jump not above >>>hex value is 76
ja jump above >>>hex value is 77
jb jump below >>>hex value is 72
jle jump lower or equal >>>hex value is 7E
jge jump greater or equal >>>hex value is 7D
jbe jump below or equal
jae jump above or equal
jnbe jump not below or equal
jnae jump not above or equal
jnge jump not greater or equal
jnbe jump not below or equal
jz jump if zero
jnz jump if not zero
jg jump if greater >>>hex value is 7F
jl jump if lesser >>>hex value is 7C
nop No-OPeration >>>It tells the program to "do absolutely nothing"
jmp jump directly to >>>this is an unconditional jump >>>hex value is EB
inc eax ==>>hex value = 40 ,
dec eax ==>>hex value= 48 ,
nop ==>>hex value= 90

I think that's enough for the jumps and asm bombings.The hex value for nop is 90.The "inc eax" means increase eax by one. The "dec eax" means decrease eax value by one. Therefore the net result is zero.......sh!T...???..c0nfuseD....dont panic…

Enough for that silly Q&A lets go directly to our main dish….

For this tutorial we will only need OllyDbg to crack our program which is RegEdit and TaskMgr. You may be asking yourself why would you like to crack RegEdit or TaskMgr because it is already free when you install your Win OS. The answer is there may be some instances when your friendly administrator have disabled the use of TaskManager and RegEdit or a virus had infected your computer and disabled those two tools so that you cannot easily remove the infection…

When your TaskManager and RegEdit is disabled you will see these two MessageBoxes that tells you that you are not allowed to use TaskManager or the Registry Editor.

Quote:

Note: If TaskManager and RegEdit is not Disabled you can Disable it using the RegEdit&TaskManager Disabler that is included in this tutorial the application just adds two Entry in the registry and at the end of this tutorial you should possibly have the knowledge on what are those two entry and how to restore your regedit and taskmanager back… 

The Cracking :

Tools Needed : OllyDbg 1.10 (Google for it in the web. It’s Free)

First we will crack TaskMgr.exe to make it work even though it is disabled by your administrator.

1. Load your TaskMgr.exe to OllyDbg by Choosing File > Open and locating your TaskMgr.exe in the Windows Folder.
Note: It is usually located in “C:\WINDOWS\system32\taskmgr.exe”

2. Once loaded we will automatically break at OEP. You will see a window like this. It is a disassembly listing of the taskMgr.exe the Highlighted line is the OEP (Original Entry Point) of the program.

3. Next Press F9 which is the shortcut key for Run to Execute the application. As we already know we will be greeted by this MessageBox. Press Ok to terminate the application

4. Our next move is to find out where that MessageBox is called.
It is probably shown using the MessageBox Function. So we will set our breakpoint at the places where MessageBox is called so Press Ctrl-F2 to restart our application.
If a Message box appears saying Process blah blah is active if you terminate ……..
Just press ok. Then Right Click on the disassembly listing and
select Search for > Name (label) in current module or Press Ctrl + N

5. A window will popup that lists all the functions that are imported by the application

6. Look for MessageBoxW then Right Click on it and select Set Breakpoint on every reference

When you’ve done it correctly it will show you at the StatusBar that you’ve set 11 Breakpoints that is the number of times that MessageBoxW appeared in the application.

7. Now Press F9 to Continue Executing the application…
We are now at the point where MessageBoxW will be called…

Just look above the MessageBoxW Call and you can see the call to RegOpenKeyEx and RegQueryValueExW.
The RegOpenKeyEx Open the registry Key “Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Pol icies\\System"
And the RegQueryValueExW Gets the value stored in the Value “DisableTAskMgr”

That means that TaskMgr.exe actually looks for the value in the registry entry “Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Pol icies\\System\\DisableTAskMgr “ and checks if its zero(Enabled) or 1(Disabled) which is then check by the JE Operation below the RegCloseKey.
If its Zero it would jump pass the MessageBox and Show the TaskMgr else it would continue executing the next line and show the MessageBox.


8. Now we know where to patch our TaskMgr to do that
Click JE Short taskmgr.01005574 and Press F2 or Toggle BreakPoint then
Press Ctrl+F2 to Restart our application then
Press F9 to Continue we will now break on our breakpoint.
Double click on the JE Command and Replace JE to JMP or unconditional jump. Then Click Assemble.

9. You may now Press F9 and the MessageBox will not show anymore instead it will show the Windows Task Manager.

Observations : To crack an application you should first observe your target in this tutorial a messagebox is shown saying that taskmanager is disabled so we’ve set a breakpoint on the MessageBoxW Function and analyzed the code above the call to MessageBoxW then we found that it checks for a specific key in the registry and if it found that its value is 1 it should show the Message Box. We can actually set a breakpoint on RegOpenKeyEx and RegQueryValueExW which is use to access the registry if we already know that it checks for a specific key in the registry.


10. To Save Your patched Task Manager Right Click on the Code Window and Select Copy to Executable > All Modifications > Copy All

11. Right Click on the PopUp Window and Select Save File… Save your patched TaskMgr.exe as TaskMgrPatched.exe and your done…


Cracking RegEdit

Now let’s move on in cracking our RegEdit Lets still follow the same steps in cracking the Task Manager.

1. Load RegEdit.exe in Olly then Set BreakPoint in MessageBoxW and Press F9
2. Look for a JE above the MessageBox Call set a BreakPoint then Restart Olly by Pressing F2 then Press F9 to continue we will then break to our break point in JE
3. Patch JE to JMP to bypass the MessageBox then Press F9… Easy Huh…

4. Oops… what happened the MessageBox did not show but RegEdit Terminated. Our Patch was wrong we must still find where the why the Message Box is shown. In our TaskManager It must first check in the registry if a certain Key is present to know if it is disabled or not. We may try to set a breakpoint on all RegOpenKeyExW.

5. So Press Ctrl + F2 to restart the application then
Press Ctrl + N
And Look For RegOpenKeyW there is also RegOpenKeyExW and RegOpenKeyExA on top of it so set also a breakpoint on that Functions to be sure…
After you’ve set the breakpoints you can now press “F9”


After pressing F9 we will break at RegOpenKeyW… It also checks the Same Key like in the TaskMgr maybe this would work… if we patch the JNZ below to JMP we would fool RegEdit that the Key does not exists. W/c means it is not disabled…Let’s try… to change JNZ to JMP.

After you’ve changed JNZ to JMP press F9 and voila no more MessageBox and the Registry Editor did not Terminate. You can now save your New RegEdit by Following steps 10 to 11 in the TaskManager tutorial.

The Hackers

Hacking history

Hacking developed alongside "Phone Phreaking", a term referred to exploration of the phone network without authorization, and there has often been overlap between both technology and participants. Bruce Sterling traces part of the roots of the computer underground to the Yippies, a 1960s counterculture movement which published the Technological Assistance Program (TAP) newsletter. Other sources of early 70s hacker culture can be traced towards more beneficial forms of hacking, including MIT labs or the homebrew club, which later resulted in such things as early personal computers or the open source movement.



Hacker (computer security)

In common usage, a hacker is a person who breaks into computers, usually by gaining access to administrative controls. The subculture that has evolved around hackers is often referred to as the computer underground. Proponents claim to be motivated by artistic and political ends, and are often unconcerned about the use of illegal means to achieve them.

Other uses of the word hacker exist that are not related to computer security (computer programmer and home computer hobbyists), but these are rarely used by the mainstream media. Some would argue that the people that are now considered hackers are not hackers, as before the media described the person who breaks into computers as a hacker there was a hacker community. This community was a community of people who had a large interest in computer programming, often creating open source software. These people now refer to the cyber-criminal hackers as "crackers".




Black hat

Black Hat Hackers (also called "crackers"), are hackers who specialize in unauthorized penetration. They may use computers to attack systems for profit, for fun, or for political motivations or as a part of a social cause. Such penetration often involves modification and/or erasing of data, and is done without authorization and hence they should not be confused with “ethical hackers” (see white hat hacker).

They also may distribute computer viruses, Internet worms, and deliver spam through the use of botnets. The term may also refer to hackers who crack software to remove copy restriction methods: copy prevention, trial/demo version, serial number, hardware key, date checks, CD check (NO-CD) or software annoyances like nag screens and adware.

The Black Hat Conference is a major conference dedicated both to learning (and potentially furthering) Black Hat techniques and also to understanding and preventing them.




White hat

A white hat is the hero or good guy, especially in computing slang, where it refers to an ethical hacker or penetration tester who focuses on securing and protecting IT systems.

White hat hackers, also known as ethical hackers, or white knights, are computer security experts, who specialize in penetration testing, and other testing methodologies, to ensure that a company's information systems are secure. Such people are employed by companies where these professionals are sometimes called "sneakers." Groups of these people are often called tiger teams or red teams. These security experts may utilize a variety of methods to carry out their tests, including social engineering tactics, use of hacking tools, and attempts to evade security to gain entry into secured areas.

The National Security Agency offers certifications such as the CNSS 4011. Such a certification covers orderly, ethical hacking techniques and team management. Aggressor teams are called "red" teams. Defender teams are called "blue" teams.

A white hat hacker breaks security for non-malicious reasons, for instance testing their own security system. This type of hacker enjoys learning and working with computer systems, and consequently gains a deeper understanding of the subject. Such people normally go on to use their hacking skills in legitimate ways, such as becoming security consultants. The word 'hacker' originally included people like this, although a hacker may not be someone into security.



In recent years, the terms white hat and black hat have been applied to the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) industry. Black hat SEO tactics such as spamdexing, attempt to redirect search results to particular target pages in a fashion that is against the search engines' terms of service, whereas white hat methods are generally approved by the search engines. White hats tend to produce results that last a long time, whereas black hats anticipate that their sites may eventually be banned either temporarily or permanently once the search engines discover what they are doing.




Grey hat

A grey hat hacker is a hacker of ambiguous ethics and/or borderline legality, often frankly admitted.
A grey hat, in the hacking community, refers to a skilled hacker who sometimes acts illegally, sometimes in good will, and sometimes not. They are a hybrid between white and black hat hackers. They usually do not hack for personal gain or have malicious intentions, but may or may not occasionally commit crimes during the course of their technological exploits.


One reason a grey hat might consider himself to be grey is to disambiguate from the other two extremes: black and white. For example, a grey hat hacker may penetrate a computer system without authorization, an illegal act in most countries. However, the hacker may simply patch the security hole that allowed them access without damaging the system. In this situation, they may or may not disclose their activities, due to legal ramifications. It is possibly misleading to say that grey hat hackers do not hack for personal gain. While they do not necessarily hack for malicious purposes, grey hats do hack for a reason, a reason which more often than not remains undisclosed. A grey hat will not necessarily notify the system administrator of a penetrated system of their penetration. A grey hat will prefer anonymity at almost all cost, carrying out their penetration undetected and then leaving undetected. Consequently, grey hat penetrations of systems tend to be far more passive activities such as testing, monitoring, or less destructive forms of data transfer and retrieval.

In addition, they may be further disambiguated by their stance as it refers to the proper disclosure of computer security flaws. Whereas a white hat will generally work with a vendor to correct the flaw, within a time frame, or under certain conditions. They also may attempt to pressure vendors to release a patch for a flaw through the possibility of disclosure. Their intention is to make systems safer. A black hat will generally never disclose information to the public, since doing so will cause systems to be patched and greatly reduce the effectiveness of the vulnerability. In fact there has been a long standing controversy of black hats opposed to the white hat policy of full disclosure. Grey hats may or may not release vulnerabilities to the vendor or the public. They may attempt to sell them to black hats or white hats.



script kiddie

is a non-expert who breaks into computer systems by using pre-packaged automated tools written by others, usually with little understanding. These are the outcasts of the hacker community.


Hacktivist

A hacktivist is a hacker who utilizes technology to announce a social, ideological, religious, or political message. In general, most hacktivism involves website defacement or denial-of-service attacks. In more extreme cases, hacktivism is used as tool for Cyberterrorism.


Source: Wikipedia

Hacking's History

From phone phreaks to Web attacks, hacking has been a part of computing for 40 years.

Hacking has been around pretty much since the development of the first electronic computers. Here are some of the key events in the last four decades of hacking.

1960s
The Dawn of Hacking

The first computer hackers emerge at MIT. They borrow their name from a term to describe members of a model train group at the school who "hack" the electric trains, tracks, and switches to make them perform faster and differently. A few of the members transfer their curiosity and rigging skills to the new mainframe computing systems being studied and developed on campus.

1970s
Phone Phreaks and Cap'n Crunch

Phone hackers (phreaks) break into regional and international phone networks to make free calls. One phreak, John Draper (aka Cap'n Crunch), learns that a toy whistle given away inside Cap'n Crunch cereal generates a 2600-hertz signal, the same high-pitched tone that accesses AT&T's long-distance switching system.

Draper builds a "blue box" that, when used in conjunction with the whistle and sounded into a phone receiver, allows phreaks to make free calls.

Shortly thereafter, Esquire magazine publishes "Secrets of the Little Blue Box" with instructions for making a blue box, and wire fraud in the United States escalates. Among the perpetrators: college kids Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, future founders of Apple Computer, who launch a home industry making and selling blue boxes.

1980
Hacker Message Boards and Groups

Phone phreaks begin to move into the realm of computer hacking, and the first electronic bulletin board systems (BBSs) spring up.

The precursor to Usenet newsgroups and e-mail, the boards--with names such as Sherwood Forest and Catch-22--become the venue of choice for phreaks and hackers to gossip, trade tips, and share stolen computer passwords and credit card numbers.

Hacking groups begin to form. Among the first are Legion of Doom in the United States, and Chaos Computer Club in Germany.

1983
Kids' Games

The movie War Games introduces the public to hacking, and the legend of hackers as cyberheroes (and anti-heroes) is born. The film's main character, played by Matthew Broderick, attempts to crack into a video game manufacturer's computer to play a game, but instead breaks into the military's nuclear combat simulator computer..

The computer (codenamed WOPR, a pun on the military's real system called BURGR) misinterprets the hacker's request to play Global Thermonuclear War as an enemy missile launch. The break-in throws the military into high alert, or Def Con 1 (Defense Condition 1).

The same year, authorities arrest six teenagers known as the 414 gang (after the area code to which they are traced). During a nine-day spree, the gang breaks into some 60 computers, among them computers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which helps develop nuclear weapons.

1984
Hacker 'Zines

The hacker magazine 2600 begins regular publication, followed a year later by the online 'zine Phrack. The editor of 2600, "Emmanuel Goldstein" (whose real name is Eric Corley), takes his handle from the main character in George Orwell's 1984. Both publications provide tips for would-be hackers and phone phreaks, as well as commentary on the hacker issues of the day. Today, copies of 2600 are sold at most large retail bookstores.

1986
Use a Computer, Go to Jail

In the wake of an increasing number of break-ins to government and corporate computers, Congress passes the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which makes it a crime to break into computer systems. The law, however, does not cover juveniles.

1988
The Morris Worm

Robert T. Morris, Jr., a graduate student at Cornell University and son of a chief scientist at a division of the National Security Agency, launches a self-replicating worm on the government's ARPAnet (precursor to the Internet) to test its effect on UNIX systems.

The worm gets out of hand and spreads to some 6000 networked computers, clogging government and university systems. Morris is dismissed from Cornell, sentenced to three years' probation, and fined $10,000.

1989
The Germans and the KGB

In the first cyberespionage case to make international headlines, hackers in West Germany (loosely affiliated with the Chaos Computer Club) are arrested for breaking into U.S. government and corporate computers and selling operating-system source code to the Soviet KGB.

Three of them are turned in by two fellow hacker spies, and a fourth suspected hacker commits suicide when his possible role in the plan is publicized. Because the information stolen is not classified, the hackers are fined and sentenced to probation.

In a separate incident, a hacker is arrested who calls himself The Mentor. He publishes a now-famous treatise that comes to be known as the Hacker's Manifesto. The piece, a defense of hacker antics, begins, "My crime is that of curiosity... I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all."

1990
Operation Sundevil

After a prolonged sting investigation, Secret Service agents swoop down on hackers in 14 U.S. cities, conducting early-morning raids and arrests.

The arrests involve organizers and prominent members of BBSs and are aimed at cracking down on credit-card theft and telephone and wire fraud. The result is a breakdown in the hacking community, with members informing on each other in exchange for immunity.

1993
Why Buy a Car When You Can Hack One?

During radio station call-in contests, hacker-fugitive Kevin Poulsen and two friends rig the stations' phone systems to let only their calls through, and "win" two Porsches, vacation trips, and $20,000.

Poulsen, already wanted for breaking into phone- company systems, serves five years in prison for computer and wire fraud. (Since his release in 1996, he has worked as a freelance journalist covering computer crime.)

The first Def Con hacking conference takes place in Las Vegas. The conference is meant to be a one-time party to say good-bye to BBSs (now replaced by the Web), but the gathering is so popular it becomes an annual event.

1994
Hacking Tools R Us

The Internet begins to take off as a new browser, Netscape Navigator, makes information on the Web more accessible. Hackers take to the new venue quickly, moving all their how-to information and hacking programs from the old BBSs to new hacker Web sites.

As information and easy-to-use tools become available to anyone with Net access, the face of hacking begins to change.

1995
The Mitnick Takedown

Serial cybertrespasser Kevin Mitnick is captured by federal agents and charged with stealing 20,000 credit card numbers. He's kept in prison for four years without a trial and becomes a cause célèbre in the hacking underground.

After pleading guilty to seven charges at his trial in March 1999, he's eventually sentenced to little more than time he had already served while he wait for a trial.

Russian crackers siphon $10 million from Citibank and transfer the money to bank accounts around the world. Vladimir Levin, the 30-year-old ringleader, uses his work laptop after hours to transfer the funds to accounts in Finland and Israel.

Levin stands trial in the United States and is sentenced to three years in prison. Authorities recover all but $400,000 of the stolen money.

1997
Hacking AOL

AOHell is released, a freeware application that allows a burgeoning community of unskilled hackers--or script kiddies--to wreak havoc on America Online. For days, hundreds of thousands of AOL users find their mailboxes flooded with multi-megabyte mail bombs and their chat rooms disrupted with spam messages.

1998
The Cult of Hacking and the Israeli Connection

The hacking group Cult of the Dead Cow releases its Trojan horse program, Back Orifice--a powerful hacking tool--at Def Con. Once a hacker installs the Trojan horse on a machine running Windows 95 or Windows 98, the program allows unauthorized remote access of the machine.

During heightened tensions in the Persian Gulf, hackers touch off a string of break-ins to unclassified Pentagon computers and steal software programs. Then-U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre calls it "the most organized and systematic attack" on U.S. military systems to date.

An investigation points to two American teens. A 19-year-old Israeli hacker who calls himself The Analyzer (aka Ehud Tenebaum) is eventually identified as their ringleader and arrested. Today Tenebaum is chief technology officer of a computer consulting firm.

1999
Software Security Goes Mainstream

In the wake of Microsoft's Windows 98 release, 1999 becomes a banner year for security (and hacking). Hundreds of advisories and patches are released in response to newfound (and widely publicized) bugs in Windows and other commercial software products. A host of security software vendors release anti-hacking products for use on home computers.

2000
Service Denied

In one of the biggest denial-of-service attacks to date, hackers launch attacks against eBay, Yahoo, Amazon, and others.

Activists in Pakistan and the Middle East deface Web sites belonging to the Indian and Israeli governments to protest oppression in Kashmir and Palestine.

Hackers break into Microsoft's corporate network and access source code for the latest versions of Windows and Office.

2001
DNS Attack

Microsoft becomes the prominent victim of a new type of hack that attacks the domain name server. In these denial-of-service attacks, the DNS paths that take users to Microsoft's Web sites are corrupted. The hack is detected within a few hours, but prevents millions of users from reaching Microsoft Web pages for two days.

Source: pcworld

Who are Hackers?

Who are Hackers?

I feel it is necessary to clarify the term hacker. Perhaps your definition of a hacker has been influenced and tainted over the years. There have been various computer related activities attributed to the term “hacker”, but were greatly misunderstood. Unfortunately for the people who are truly defined within the underground tech world as a “hacker” this is an insult to them. There are various types of “hackers”, each with their own agenda. My goal is to help protect you from the worst of them.

Anarchist Hackers

These are the individuals who you should be weary of. Their sole intent on system infiltration is to cause damage or use information to create havoc. They are primarily the individuals who are responsible for the majority of system attacks against home users. They are more likely to be interested in what lies on another person’s machine for example yours. Mostly you’ll find that these individuals have slightly above computer skill level and consider themselves hackers. They glorify themselves on the accomplishments of others. Their idea of classing themselves as a hacker is that of acquire program and utilities readily available on the net, use these programs with no real knowledge of how these applications work and if they manage to “break” into someone’s system class themselves as a hacker. These individuals are called “Kiddie Hackers.” They use these programs given to them in a malicious fashion on anyone they can infect. They have no real purpose to what they are doing except the fact of saying “Yeah! I broke into computer!” It gives them bragging rights to their friends. If there is any damage to occur in a system being broken into these individuals will accomplish it. These individuals are usually high school students. They brag about their accomplishments to their friends and try to build an image of being hackers.

Hackers

A hacker by definition believes in access to free information. They are usually very intelligent people who could care very little about what you have on your system. Their thrill comes from system infiltration for information reasons. Hackers unlike “crackers and anarchist” know being able to break system security doesn’t make you a hacker any more than adding 2+2 makes you a mathematician. Unfortunately, many journalists and writers have been fooled into using the word ‘hacker.” They have attributed any computer related illegal activities to the term “hacker.” Real hackers target mainly government institution. They believe important information can be found within government institutions. To them the risk is worth it. The higher the security the better the challenge. The better the challenge the better the need to be. Who’s the best keyboard cowboy? So to speak! These individuals come in a variety of age classes. They range from High School students to University Grads. They are quite adept at programming and are smart enough to stay out of the spotlight. They don’t particularly care about bragging about their accomplishments as it exposes them to suspicion. They prefer to work from behind the scenes and preserve their anonymity. Not all hackers are loners, often you’ll find they have a very tight circle of associates, but still there is a level of anonymity between them. An associate of mine once said to me “if they say they are a hacker, then they’re not!”

Crackers

For definition purposes I have included this term. This is primarily the term given to individuals who are skilled at the art of bypassing software copyright protection. They are usually highly skilled in programming languages. They are often confused with Hackers. As you can see they are similar in their agenda. They both fight security of some kind, but they are completely different “animals.” Being able to attribute your attacks to the right type of attacker is very important. By identifying your attacker to be either an Anarchist Hacker or a Hacker you get a better idea of what you’re up against.

“Know your enemy and know yourself and you will always be victorious...”