in computer hacking, what does it mean to get in via a back door and how does it work?
In: Technology
Did you ever learn the “Konami Code” for video games? On some Nintendo games, if you hit ↑↑↓↓←→←→BA **START**, you would get a bunch of extra lives and power-ups for the game. This was invented so the game developers could test their game without needing to be exceptionally skilled. This is an example of a back door in a computer system.
Other networking systems will sometimes have these, usually in the form of administrative tools. A common practice in an organization I used to work for was the “Troubleshooter Account.” This was an admin account that anyone troubleshooting computers on the system could use. Of course, this was a major security vulnerability as well — if a worker stopped working for that organization, or even just the department that did computer work, they still had access to everything in the network. In other cases, they exist for the same reason as the Konami code: developers put them in so they could work with all parts of a secure program.
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