What does hacking actually LOOK like? For example, what interface is the hacker using, what’s their goal, and are they typing in a bunch of passwords like in the movies?
In: Technology
Hacking usually just involves running a program and waiting for the program to finish its process. It may ask for some input while it’s running, but most of it is clicking some file to run, watching a terminal while the program is at work, and then get the output of the program. In some cases, it may be like browsing a computer with File Explorer and just copying/downloading files.
People say that it’s “nothing like the movies”. That’s partially true: it’s not like it’s some kind of digital fencing with the hacked computer like they sometimes tend to show. Usually the moment of access is very anticlimactic as your hacking tool simply returns values. That doesn’t mean that the act of hacking cannot be tense.
I’ve done some research on the security of older WiFi encryption (WEP most of all, which has been deemed insecure for a couple of years now). To crack the passcode for the network, I basically had to collect traffic packages at bulk, hoping to get a duplicate. So most of the work was just waiting, hoping for someone to start using the network (in my case it was a lab setting so the use was simulated) and then watch the package count increase until I had acquired enough to make it statistically likely to have a usable set of duplicates. At which point, I saved the sniffed data (like you’re exporting an excel as .csv), loaded it into the program I wrote (which was in C and simply ran in a Windows terminal) and then waited for the program to finally crack the code. When it did, it sent a message “password found: XXXXXX” and I tried to connect to the network on a different computer with the given passcode.
I also tried this with my own network at home and I tried to connect to the network with another PC with the cracked code and checked how much of my data I was able to collect. Trying to open a shared folder and then to find that I’m able to basically download my entire My Documents folder without any problems, could run printing tasks on the shared printer on the network, was very exciting. At which point you’re just using Windows File Explorer to peek around.
Hacking can be exciting, when it is successful. However, depending on the kind of hack you are either looking at numerous failures before you have any success, if that, or you’ll have to collect data for minutes, hours, or sometimes even months before that data is sufficient to crack the system. All that time spending mass data collection is quite boring.
The more interesting hacks are pentests in which you try to physically penetrate a company building, attach a network backdoor somewhere hidden, and then use that network backdoor to log in from outside the building, basically like a remote PC. In which, again, the Moment Supreme is just the moment at which you try to log in to your backdoor and you see the desktop appear and the icon shows as “connected” in the bottom right corner of the remote desktop. Once you’re in, you’re just peeking around with a file explorer to see what you have access to.
If you’re interested in hacking and the process of it, I’d advice the Darknet Diaries podcast series. It interviews (in)famous hackers, pentesters, social engineers about major historic hacks and how they were carried out.
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