HACKING & HACKERS : A DARK WORLD!!!!!!

 HACKING : A DARK WORLD!!!!!!! 

#Hack_for_Hire

#Cyber_Crime

The Cambridge dictionary describes the word "Hacking" as the activity of using a computer to access information stored on another computer system without permission or to spread a computer virus. The term Hacking in Cyber context is equivalent to Computer Intrusion or Cyber Crime and the word hacking dates back to the 1970s.In 1980s , an article in 'Psychology Today' used the term "Hacker" in it's title as 'The Hackers Paper' which discussed the addictive nature of computer use. 

Then, there is an American science fiction film, Tron in which the protagonist describes his intention to break into a company's computer system as hacking into it. A movie War Games-High school student(Matthew Broderick) hacks into a military super computer in this classic and activates the US nuclear arsenal, at a time when most people didn't know about what hacking was. 

In today's world the hacker are considered as a wrong and unreliable people, but we need to understand that every act of hacker is not harmful, and it is also a type of specific profession. It has been estimated that Indian Hacking market will become of about $1.7 billion in next 2 years. 

Every kind of hacking is not an illegal action, because hacking is sometimes done by professionals to bring out low security issues or bugs into a system. Many computer enthusiasts prefers to use,a more term Cracker, because hacker projects a wrong face of people who are well versed in this profession. Sometimes, you noticed, someone is sending you a misleading mails, it is also an act of trying to hack you system, so be alert before clicking on such fraud mails. Most of us have lost our access to our social media accounts, not because of forgetting our password but due to other reason, then it may also an step initiated to hack your account. 

The act of "PHISHING" i.e. an attempt to trick someone into giving information over the internet or by email that would allow someone else to take money from them, For ex-- taking money out of their bank account and it is one of the most common act of hacking in Online Payment. 

I have also a real-life situation when a friend of mine was very worried when he came to know his Facebook account has been hacked. 

My friend, as usual uses his Facebook account and he had not changed his password for last 2-months, and one day his one of relative received a message on Facebook demanding ₹50, 000 in my friend's name, but when his relative tried to confirm this demand, then my friend was totally shocked, and instantly blocked his account via help of Facebook and due to pandemic & lockdown, the criminals are devising these plans on  online platform. So be alert. 

DARK WEB: A Easy Platform for Hackers

The dark web is a small part of deep web, but the term is sometimes used interchangeably. As the name suggest the dark web is invisible to search engines, and deep web refers to anything that is not indexed by search engines like Google etc. The dark web is intentionally hidden, requiring a specific browser--- Tor to access. The darknet which is a network of dark web, is accessible only through network such as Tor ( The Onion project) and I2P ( Invisible Internet Project). Tor browser and Tor accessible sites are widely used among the darknet users and can be identified by the domain, .onion.The darknet is mostly used for illegal activities but it has positive sides that can't be denied. 

According to a report published in Hindustan paper dated 29 July, 2020--

"How our country is growing into Hacking Hub"--

It has been said that one evening a phone with strange number came to about 30-year old man of Kanpur, asking him to steal a list of employee's details of a particular company in turn he was promised to be paid about 40,000 bitcoins but at last he denied the proposal.The proposal came to him because he had searched a lot about Hacking on dark web. For instance, "BITCOIN" is a digital currency without a Central or Single administrator and there are not physical bitcoins, only balances kept on a public ledger that everyone has transparent access to, that along with all BITCOIN transaction is verified by a massive amount of computing power. It is not issued by any banks or backed by government.The victim of hacking is mostly-Corporate Employee's, Politicians, Celebrities and Ex-lovers. 

A tedtalk on Hacking--  

According to annual report of "HACKERONE", a community working on security said Indian hackers in 2018,were on the second position in earning by discovering bugs in security and at first place was occupied by American hackers. According to latest report, India obtained about 10% of total bug bounty and America got about 19% of total bug bounty and then was Russia, China and Germany. A bug bounty can be understood as a compensation for reporting bugs. And that's why I think it is necessary that India pays respect and good payment to our Ethical Hackers who can  play a key role in strengthening our Cyber Security. 

How much are they paid? 

The CEO of Appsecure( is a special cyber security company) Anand Prakash says that in 2017,he send a message of discovering a bug to Twitter, and for this Twitter paid him about ₹3-Lakh in name of bug bounty.Prakash says, if he had send this bug message on Dark Web, them he could have earned more, but that would be unethical for me. 

According to security researcher Karn Saini, In India for hacking a person's Facebook or email account, you can get approximately ₹2,000, but on Dark web you can easily get about $500( ₹37, 000)!!!!.

And on the basis of these legal or illegal hacking or security breakdown, hackers has been classified as--

1.) WHITE HAT HACKERS

2.) BLACK VAT HACKERS

3.) GREY HAT HACKERS

1).White hat hackers: White hat hackers are hackers who work to keep data secure and safe for unauthorized access from hackers by finding bug and system vulnerabilities that can be minimised a d corrected. These people are usually employed by the target systems owner and are paid very decently. In India, We have Anand Prakash, CEO of Appsecure, Ankit Vadia are some of the bright name in this field. 

2).Black hat hackers: Black hat hackers or Crackers are hacker who are intended to harm the users. They often steal, exploit, and sell data and are usually driven by the motive of revenge or personal gain. Their work is illegal.  

3).Grey hat hackers:Grey hat hackers include those hacker who hack for fun or  troll. They may both fix and exploit the bug's in system, but usually they do not work for financial purpose. Even if not intended to do harm, their work can still be illegal, if not done with the consent of the target system. 

A Ted-Talk on Dark web--

            

According to Security Researcher, Avinash Jain, he discovered the vulnerabilities in the Online Registration System (ORS) in August 2018 at government's hospital. He was able to access details such as the patient's full name, address, age, mobile no., history of appointment made via portal, patient ID, partial Aadhar number and details of disease ailing and individual. 

The bug would have allowed any attack to access details of patients who had booked appointment in any of the 237 registered,said Jain. At the time, he conveyed this message to CERT-In (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) which deals with Cyber Security in India and the flaw in the government portal was patched in October 2018 last year. This incident highlighted the need to encourage Ethical Hacking in India. 

As per information reported to and tracked by CERT-In more than 300,0000 cyber-security incidents were reported in 2019 steep increase from 50,352 in 2016.

But Indian Information Technology Act clearly states that any individual who gains unauthorized access to a computer resources is guilty or liable. But the crime is defined in the context of of unauthorized access, many researchers fear reporting the flaw to government. This needs to be amended in our country and ethical hacking (White hat hackers) should be given proper impetus in our country, and they can play a very important role in securing our Cyber world and we need to strengthen our Cyber security from malicious items. 

The White hat hackers should be appreciated and acknowledged by Government, then only our cyber security will be strong enough to combat any kind of Cyber Attack. 

nment. This needs to be amended in our country and ethical White hat hackers) should be given proper impetus in our country, and they can play a very important role in securing our Cyber world and we need to strengthen our Cyber security from malicious items. 

The White hat hackers should be appreciated and acknowledged by Government, then only our cyber security will be strong enough to combat any kind of Cyber Attack.