in computer hacking, what does it mean to get in via a back door and how does it work?
In: Technology
Usually a ‘back-door’ is a door left for administrative purposes. So, if everyone is visiting website [www.yourswebsite.com](https://www.yourswebsite.com) there may be a portal at [www.yourwebsite.com:9443](https://www.yourwebsite.com:9443) where, upon authentication – you can manage the underlying code or infrastructure of the website. If you ‘get in through the backdoor’, it could be as simple as getting to that admin portal and guessing the credentials.
Really, in IT/networks, there are no ‘backdoors’, only doors. When we say ‘backdoor’, we normally just mean a way to access a system that is only for specific purposes by people with the right credentials. Sometimes ‘backdoors’, are left ‘wide open’, which means they have no password at all or it is configured with the default install password. This happens when lazy admins either forget or don’t realize that door existed at all.
One of the common themes of a ‘web scrape’ attack, or a ‘port scan’, is to try and reveal administrative doors left for remote management. In a web scrape, you may download the website/application and then scour the code for methods of accessing the back end you can replicate. A port scan is a bit less sophisticated, it will return all the ports (you can think of a ‘port’ as a door) that respond and then you try to SSH (a way of accessing a system remotely), HTTP, HTTPS, and even RDP to it to see if you can get it to prompt you for authentication.
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