RESEARCH PAPER ON HACKING AND

CRACKING TECHNIQUES

BY;
ERIC MUIA

PRESENTED TO DR. OGOT, JARAMOGI OGINGA ODINGA UNIVERSITY

AS A REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF CAT ASSIGNMENT MARKS.

IIT 3421 INFORMATON WARFARE DR. OGOT

ABSTRACT
Hacking is generally skills for gaining unauthorized access to data or computer
services. Cracking on the other hand is the art of modification of software to remove
or disable features which are considered undesirable by the person cracking the
software, especially copy protection features (including protection against the
manipulation of software, serial number, hardware key, date checks and disc check)
or software annoyances like nag screens and adware. This paper looks at critically
reviewing the two areas, how they are related, the techniques used in the two areas
and various countermeasures to the techniques discussed.

Contents
1. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................... 4
 1.1 TYPES OF HACKERS .................................................................................................................... 5
1.2 THE HACKING PROCESS ...................................................................................................... 6
1.3 METHODS OF HACKING ....................................................................................................... 7
2. CATEGORIES OF HACKING AND CRACKING ........................................................................ 8
2.1 HACKING ......................................................................................................................................... 9
2.2 CRACKING .............................................................................................................................. 10
2.2.1 Cracking for fun: ..................................................................................................................... 10
2.2.2 Financial Crime or Phreaking: ............................................................................................... 11
2.2.3 Hacktivism: ............................................................................................................................... 11
3. HACKING TECHNIQUES AND THEIR COUNTER MEASURES .......................................... 11
3.1 Hacking and Cracking Techniques ............................................................................................... 11
3.2. Protection Measures ...................................................................................................................... 15
1. INTRODUCTION
Hacking is identifying weakness in computer systems or networks to exploit its
weaknesses to gain access. The term "hack" was first used by US university
computing Centre staff in the mid-1960s.(Wikipedia) Intrusion is defined as an
attempt to break into or misuse a computer system. There are two words to
describe people who try to get into system: hacker and cracker. Hacker are those
people who get into system or use the system for legal purposes. Basic purpose
of hackers is to know the system internally without any bad intention. Hackers
like to explore their own systems whereas malicious hacker is the person who
likes getting into other people’s system.

Computers have become mandatory to run a successful business. It is not enough

to have isolated computers systems; they need to be networked to facilitate
communication with external businesses. This exposes them to the outside world
and hacking. Hacking means using computers to commit fraudulent acts such as
fraud, privacy invasion, stealing corporate/personal data, etc. Cybercrimes cost
many organizations millions of dollars every year. Businesses need to protect
themselves against such attacks.

In most cases cracking is referred to as part of hacking whereas some people use
the word to mean hacking or hacking to mean cracking. So cracking is generally
part and piece of hacking since you need to crack password for you to gain access
to computers and networks and also you need to crack software applications so
as to use them illegally without paying for them i.e. gaining unauthorized access.

There is also hacking which is referred to as ethical or penetration testing. Ethical

Hacking is identifying weakness in computer systems and/or computer networks
and coming with countermeasures that protect the weaknesses. Ethical hackers
must abide by the following rules.

 Get written permission from the owner of the computer system and/or
computer network before hacking.
 Protect the privacy of the organization been hacked.
 Transparently report all the identified weaknesses in the computer system
to the organization.
 Inform hardware and software vendors of the identified weaknesses.
1.1 TYPES OF HACKERS
A hacker is a person who finds and exploits the weakness in computer systems
and/or networks to gain access. Hackers are usually skilled computer programmers
with knowledge of computer security. Hackers are classified according to the intent
of their actions. The following list classifies hackers according to their intent.

Symbol Description

Ethical Hacker (White hat): A hacker

who gains access to systems with a
view to fix the identified weaknesses.
They may also perform penetration
Testing and vulnerability assessments.

Cracker (Black hat): A hacker who

gains unauthorized access to computer
systems for personal gain. The intent is
usually to steal corporate data, violate
privacy rights, transfer funds from bank
accounts etc.

Grey hat: A hacker who is in between

ethical and black hat hackers. He/she
breaks into computer systems without
authority with a view to identify
weaknesses and reveal them to the
system owner.

Script kiddies: A non-skilled person

who gains access to computer systems
using already made tools.

Hacktivist: A hacker who use hacking

to send social, religious, and political,
etc. messages. This is usually done by
hijacking websites and leaving the
message on the hijacked website.
 Phreaker: A hacker who identifies and
exploits weaknesses in telephones
instead of computers.

There is some kind of motivation behind every act of an

individual. So in this case some of the motives include the
following:
 Financial returns: For very many reasons, an individual
might be financially pressured to get involved with
human hacking. For example, family pressure.
 Revenge: For personal reasons, an individual might
decide to target a friend, colleague, organization, or ex-employer
to satisfy his or her egocentric desires.
 Self-interest: An individual might have a vested interest in
having access to a system or information in order to
modify records for personal gain or to favor a friend, family, or
colleague.

1.2 THE HACKING PROCESS

Phase 1: Reconnaissance
Can be active or passive: in passive reconnaissance the information is gathered
regarding the target without knowledge of targeted company or individual. It
could be done simply by searching information of the target on internet or
bribing an employee of targeted company who would reveal and provide useful
information to the hacker. This process is also called as “information gathering”.
In this approach, hacker does not attack the system or network of the company
to gather information. Whereas in active reconnaissance, the hacker enters into
the network to discover individual hosts, IP addresses and network services.
This process is also called as “rattling the doorknobs”. In this method, there is a
high risk of being caught as compared to passive reconnaissance.

Phase 2: Scanning:
In scanning phase, the information gathered in phase 1 is used to examine the
network. Tools like dialers, port scanners etc. are used by the hacker to examine
the network so as to gain entry in the company’s system and network.
 Phase 3: Owning The System:
This is the real and actual hacking phase. the hacker uses the information
discovered in earlier two phases to attack and enter into the local area network
(LAN, either wired or wireless), local pc access, internet or offline. This phase
is also called as “owning the system”.

Phase 4: Zombie System:

Once the hacker has gained the access in the system or network, he maintains
that access for future attacks (or additional attacks), by making
changes in the system in such a way that other hackers or security personals
cannot then enter and access the attacked system. In such a situation, the owned
system (mentioned in Phase 3) is then referred to as “Zombie System”.

Phase 5: Evidence Removal:

In this phase, the hacker removes and destroys all the evidences and traces of
hacking, such as log files or Intrusion Detection System Alarms, so that he could
not be caught and traced. This also saves him from entering into any trial or
legality. Now, once the system is hacked by hacker, there are several testing
methods available called penetration testing to discover the hackers and
crackers.

1.3 METHODS OF HACKING

Most common methods hackers use for hacking are;
 Stealing Password: Dictionary attacks, brute force attacks, and hybrid
attacks are all various methods used to guess or crack passwords. The only
real protection against such threats is to make very long passwords or use
multiple factors for authentication.
 Trojan horse: It is malware that appears to perform a desirable function
for the user prior to run or install but instead facilitates unauthorized access
of the user's computer system.
 Exploiting defaults: Nothing makes attacking a target network easier than
when that target is using the defaults set by the vendor or manufacturer.
Many attack tools and exploit scripts assume that the target is configured
using the default settings. Thus, one of the most effective and often
overlooked security precautions is simply to change the defaults.
 Man-in-the middle attacks: A MITM attack occurs when an attacker is
able to fool a user into establishing a communication link with a server or
service through a rogue entity. The rogue entity is the system controlled
 by the hacker. It has been set up to intercept the communication between
user and server without letting the user become aware that the misdirection
attack has taken place.
 Wireless attacks: Wireless networks have the appeal of freedom from
wires- the ability to be mobile within your office while maintaining
network connectivity. Wireless networks are inexpensive to deploy and
easy to install.
 Doing their homework: This implies that hackers collect information
about the organization to hack their system. Hackers spend considerable
time and effort acquiring a complete arsenal. This process can be called
reconnaissance, discovery, or foot printing. Ultimately, it is intensive,
focused research into all information available about your organization
from public and non-so public resources.
 Monitoring Vulnerability Research: They are able to read Web sites,
discussion lists, blogs, and other public information services about known
problems, issues, and vulnerabilities with hardware and software. The
more the hacker can discover about possible attack points, the more likely
it is that he can discover a weakness you've yet to patch, protect, or even
become aware of.
 Being patient and persistent: Hacking into a company network is not
typically an activity someone undertakes and completes in a short period
of time. Hackers often research their targets for weeks or months, before
starting their first tentative logical interactions against their target with
scanners, banner-grabbing tools, and crawling utilities. Once hackers have
crafted a profile of your organization, they must then select a specific
attack point, design the attack, test and drill the attack, improve the attack,
schedule the attack, and, finally, launch the attack.

2. CATEGORIES OF HACKING AND CRACKING

Hackers can be divided into three groups: white Hats, black hats and grey hats.
Ethical Hackers usually fall into the white hat Hackers category but sometimes
they’re former grey hats who have become security professionals and who use
their skills in an ethical manner. White hats are the good guys, the ethical hackers
who use their hacking skills for defensive purposes. White hat category, but
sometimes they’re former grey hats who have become security professionals and
who use this knowledge to locate weaknesses and implement countermeasures.
Black hats are the bad guys, the malicious hackers or crackers who use their skills
for illegal or malicious purposes.
 They break into or otherwise violate the system integrity of remote machines,
with malicious intent having gained unauthorized access. Black hat hackers
destroy vital data, deny leg mate users services, and basically cause problems for
their targets. Black hat hackers and crackers can easily be differentiated from
white head hackers because their actions are malicious. Grey hat hackers may
work offensively or defensibly depending on the situation. This is the dividing
line between hackers and crackers. Both are powerful forces on the internet and
both will remain permanently. And some individuals qualify for both categories.
The existence of such individuals further clouds the division between these two
groups of people. In addition to these groups, there are self- proclaimed ethical
hackers, who are interested in hacker tools mostly from a curiosity stand point.
They may want to highlight the security problem in a system or educate victims
so they secure their systems properly. These hackers are doing their “victims” a
favor. For instance, if a weakness is discovered in a service offered by an
investment bank, the hackers is doing a favor for the bank by giving the bank a
chance to rectify the vulnerability. Being able to identify the types of hackers is
important, but determining the differences equally hard.

2.1 HACKING
2.1.1 Inside Jobs
Most security breaches originate inside the network that is under attack.
Inside jobs include stealing passwords (which hackers then use or sell),
performing industrial espionage, causing harm (as disgruntled employees),
or committing simple misuse. Sound policy enforcement and observant
employees who guard their passwords and PCs can thwart many of these
security breaches.
2.1.2 Rogue Access Points
Rogue access points (APs) are unsecured wireless access points that
outsiders can easily breech. (Local hackers often advertise rogue APs to
each other.) Rogue APs are most often connected by well-meaning but
ignorant employees.
2.1.3 Back Doors
Hackers can gain access to a network by exploiting back doors,
administrative shortcuts, configuration errors, easily deciphered passwords,
and unsecured dial-ups. With the aid of computerized searchers (bots),
hackers can probably find any weakness in your network.
 2.1.4 Denial of Service
DOS attacks give hackers a way to bring down a network without gaining
internal access. DOS attacks work by flooding the access routers with bogus
traffic (which can be e-mail or Transmission Control Protocol, TCP, packets).
2.1.5 Distributed Doss
DDOSS are coordinated DOS attacks from multiple sources. A DDOSS more
difficult to block because it uses multiple, changing, source IP addresses.
2.1.6 Anarchists, Crackers, and Kiddies
Anarchists are people who just like to break stuff. They usually exploit any
target of opportunity. Crackers are hobbyists or professionals who break
passwords and develop Trojan horses or other SW (called wares). They either
use the SW themselves (for bragging rights) or sell it for profit. Script kiddies
are hacker wannabes. They have no real hacker skills, so they buy or
download wares, which they launch. Other attackers include disgruntled
employees, terrorists, political operatives, or anyone else who feels
slighted, exploited, ripped off, or unloved.
2.1.7 Sniffing and Spoofing
Sniffing refers to the act of intercepting TCP packets. This interception can
happen through simple eavesdropping or something more sinister. Spoofing
is the act of sending an illegitimate packet with an expected acknowledgment
(ACK), which a hacker can guess, predict, or obtain by snooping.

2.2 CRACKING
Cracking is hacking which does damage to a system or its contents. Computers
appear to attract a group of people who direct their anti-social activities against
the very instrumental that is, computers with which they can conduct those
activities. There are three types of cracking:
 That is done for private pleasure of the cracker
 Cracking done with financial gain in mind
 Cracking done with political motivation.
2.2.1 Cracking for fun:
The bulk of cracking is done by personal challenge of getting unauthorized
access to another’s computer. At this stage, only hacking is involved, crackers
take the further steps of interfering with the access systems by reading e-mails,
creating fictitious accounts, altering programs (often to allow themselves easier
access in future) and so forth. The cracker may do this for purely personal
pleasure or satisfaction and may wish to publicize the achievements to a
probably small group of like-minded people either to gain credibility or share
information.
2.2.2 Financial Crime or Phreaking:
While not suggesting, that cracking is not criminal, it is believed that qualitative
distinction can be made between cracking which is done with the pleasure of
achievement or challenge, and the cracking which is done with the intent of
financial gains. The amounts involved can be individually and cumulatively
small or large. In this category falls one of the earliest forms of cracking,
phreaking which is the simulating of the particular tone that allows access to US
long distance telephone services. Telephone Service theft remains a major form
of financially motivated Cracking.
2.2.3 Hacktivism:
Hacktivism is the active use of the internet with hacking techniques to make a
political statement or promote a political cause. This does not include the
maintenance of a website with apolitical view, participation in political chat
groups or sending individual e-mails with political content. This type of activity
referred to by this neologism is the hijacking, defacement, or destruction of
another’s website for political motives, secretly hacking activity on government
computer so that the public or particularly affected people are informed of
developments, destructions of files or computers for political reasons, sending
of mass e-mails in order to shut down a computer system with political uses, and
so forth.

3. HACKING TECHNIQUES AND THEIR COUNTER

MEASURES

3.1 Hacking and Cracking Techniques

1. Malicious Software;
Malicious software is specifically written to perform actions that are not
desired by the user of a computer. These actions could be passive, displaying
a harmless message on the screen, or aggressive, reformatting a hard disk.
Little experience is required to use the toolkits that are currently available. A
number of malicious software authors have taught themselves how to
program. Some produce complex programs, which take time to analyze and
demonstrate original programming concepts. Much malicious software,
however, shows signs of bad programming, and does not execute correctly.
Despite the varying quality, malicious software has found its way onto
computers worldwide. Malicious software falls into a number of categories.
2. Trojan Mule
When a computer is waiting to be logged into, a log-in screen is displayed. A
user’s identification and a password usually need to be entered in order to gain
access to the system. If a piece of software is run that simulates the log-in screen,
this would be a Trojan mule. A user would approach the computer; assume the
screen was the genuine login screen, and enter their user identifier and password.
The Trojan mule would record the data entered and terminate, usually informing
the user that the log-in was incorrect. The effect of a Trojan mule is that users'
passwords are captured by the person executing the Trojan mule.
3. Worm
A worm attacks computers that are connected by a network. A worm spreads by
attacking a computer, then sending a copy of itself down the network looking for
another machine to attack. An important difference exists between a worm and a
virus (explained subsequently). A worm makes of itself to a program, similar to
a parasite attaching to a host.
4. E-Mail Bomb
The E-mail bomb is the electronic equivalent of a letter bomb. When the E-mail
is read an electronic bomb explodes. The result of the explosion may be
degradation of system performance due to key system resources being used in the
processing of the E-mail message denial of service because the E-mail program
does not filter out certain terminal control codes from E-mail messages, causing
the terminal to hang; or something more serious due to the Email message
containing embedded object code, which in turn contains malicious code (Trojan
horse).
5. Malicious scripts
These are constructed by the underground to aid an attack on a computer system.
The script could take the form of a C program that takes advantage of a
known vulnerability in an operating system. It could also be a simplification of a
complex command Sequence.
6. Viruses
Viruses have existed for some time and can cause a variety of annoyances to the
user. They can produce amusing messages on a user's screen, delete files, and
even corrupt the hard disk so that it needs reformatting whatever its actions; the
virus interferes with the correct operation of the computer without the
authorization of the owner. Many have compared computer viruses to human
viruses. Thus the virus writer becomes the equivalent of an enemy waging
germ war fare. The most vulnerable computer to virus infection at the moment is
the PC running MS-DOS. Viruses do exist that can infect Macintosh, and other
types of machines using differenced operating Systems, such as OS/2.
In order to distinguish one virus from another, they are given names by the
antivirus industry. Naming conventions vary considerably between antivirus
software vendors. The classic definition of a virus is as follows. A virus is a self-
replicating program that can infect other programs, either by modifying them
directly or by modifying the environment in which they operate. When an
infected file is executed, this will cause virus code within the program to be
run.
7. Boot Sector Viruses
A common form of PC virus is the boot sector virus. When a PC is booted, a
number of steps are followed. First, the power on self-test (POST) is executed,
which tests the integrity of system memory and then initializes the hardware.
Information stored in nonvolatile memory is collected, and finally, POST sets up
the basic input output system (BIOS) address in the interrupt table. The A: drive
is then checked, to see if a disk is present in the drive. This can be seen and heard
when the A: drive's motor is started and the light flashes. If a disk is present in
the drive, the first sector is read into memory and executed. If no disk is found,
then the first sector of the hard disk is read. This sector is known as the master
boot sector (MBS). The MBS searches for a pointer to the DOS boot sector
(DBS), which is loaded into memory, and control is passed to it.
8. File Infector Viruses
A file infector virus is basically a program that when executed seeks out another
program to infect. When the virus finds a suitable program (the host) it attaches
a copy of itself and may alter the host in some way. These alterations ensure that
when the host is executed, the attached virus will also be executed. The virus can
then seek out another host to infect, and so the process continues. The virus may
attach itself to a host program in a number of ways; the most common types are
the following:
 Overwriting: The virus places its code over the host, thus destroying the
host. When the virus has finished executing, control is returned to the
operating system.
 Appending: The virus places its code at the end of the host. When the host
is executed, a jump instruction is usually executed, which passes control
to the virus. This jump instruction is placed at the start of the host by the
virus; the original instructions that were at the start are stored in the body
of the virus. During the virus's execution, it replaces the host's original start
instructions, and on completion it passes control to these instructions. This
process makes the virus invisible to the user until it triggers.
 Prepending: The virus places its code at the start of the host. When the host
is executed, the virus is executed first, followed by the host.
9.Triggers and payload
A trigger is the condition that must be met in order for a virus to release its
payload, which is the malicious part of the virus. Some viruses simply display
a message on the screen, others slow the operation of the computer, and the
nastier ones delete or corrupt files or reformat the hard disk. The trigger
conditions are also only limited by the writer's imagination. It may be that a
certain date causes the virus to trigger, a popular day is Friday 13th, or it may
be a certain key sequence, such as control-alt-delete.
10. Virus Techniques
Virus’s writers go to great lengths to hide the existence of their viruses. The
longer a virus remains hidden, the further its potential spread. Once it is
discovered, the virus's trail of infection comes to an end. Common
concealment techniques include:
11. Polymorphism
Polymorphism is a progression from encryption. Virus writers started
encrypting their viruses, so that when they were analyzed they appeared to be
a collection of random bytes, rather than program instructions.
Antivirus software was written that could decrypt and analyze these encrypted
viruses. To combat these writers developed polymorphic viruses.
Polymorphism is the virus's attempt at making itself unrecognizable. It does
this by encrypting itself differently every time it infects a new host. The virus
can use a different encryption algorithm, as well as a different encryption key
when it infects a new host. The virus can now encrypt itself in thousands of
different ways.
12. Stealth
Viruses reveal their existence in a number of ways. An obvious example is an
increase in the file size, when an appending or prepending virus infects a host.
A file could possibly increase from 1024 bytes long before infection to 1512
bytes after infection. This change could be revealed during a DOS DIR
command. To combat this symptom of the virus's existence, the idea of
stealth was created. As was mentioned earlier, the longer a virus remains
hidden, the further it spreads. Stealth can be described as a virus's attempt to
hide its existence and activities from system services and/or virus detection
software.
3.2. Protection Measures
How can we stop a virus infecting a computer, and if infected, how can we get rid
of it before it does any damage? Since prevention is better than cure, a wide range
of antivirus software of varying effectiveness is available, commercially and as
shareware. When the software has been purchased, follow the instructions. This
usually involves checking the machine for viruses first, before installing the
software. Antivirus software normally consists of one or more of the
following utilities;
1. Scanner - Every virus (or file for that matter) is constructed from a number of
bytes. A unique sequence of these bytes can be selected, which can be used to
identify the virus. This sequence is known as the virus's signature. Therefore, any
file containing these bytes may be infected with that virus. A scanner simply
searches through files looking for this signature. A scanner is the most common type
of antivirus software in use, and is very effective. Unfortunately, scanners
occasionally produce false positives. That is, the antivirus product identifies a file as
containing a virus, whereas in reality it is clean. This can occur by a legitimate file
containing an identical sequence of bytes to the virus's signature. By contrast, a false
negative occurs when the antivirus software identifies a file as clean, when in fact it
contains a virus.
2. Integrity Checkers - Scanners can only identify viruses which have been analyzed
and have had a signature extracted. An integrity checker can be used to combat
unidentified viruses. This utility calculates a checksum for every file that the user
chooses, and stores these checksums in a file. At frequent intervals, the integrity
checker is run again on the selected files, and checksums are recalculated. These
recalculated values can be compared with the values stored in the file. If any
checksums differ then it may be a sign that a virus has infected that file. This may
not be the case of course, because some programs legitimately alter files during the
course of their execution, and this would result in a different checksum being
calculated.
3. Behavior Blocker - This utility remains in memory while the computer is active.
Its task is to alert the user to any suspicious activity. An example would be a
program writing to a file. The drawback of this is that user intervention is required
to confirm an action to be taken, which can be an annoyance that may prefer to live
without. Fortunately, as viruses increase, so do the number of people taking
precautions. With antivirus precautions in place the chance of virus infection can
be kept to a minimum.
4. Virus Construction Kits - These kits allow anyone to create a virus. There are a
number of types available, offering different functionality.
Some use a pull down menu interface (such as the virus creation laboratory) others
(such as PS-MPC) use a text configuration file to contain a description of the
required virus. Using these tools, anyone can create a variety of viruses in a
minimal amount of time.

4. CONCLUSION
This research shows that for huge development in computer and internet
technology all credit goes to hackers, but because of crackers they are now
considered as thieves and intruders who penetrates our security and misuse it.
There are many techniques that hackers/crackers use for hacking. Hacking and
cracking both are good as well as bad in different terms. But in today’s world
both plays important role in growing technology. If hacking is used to build
something, then cracking finds a way to break them. The focus of hacker attacks
has moved with improving security measures, as the attackers seek to find a weak
point in system defenses. This leads to improvement in security but the level of
technical attack sophistication continues to rise.

5. REFERENCES

1. Google
2. Wikipedia
3. How Hackers Do It:
Tricks, Tools, and Techniques
(Alex Noordergraaf, Enterprise Server Products
Sun BluePrints™ OnLine—May, 2002).
4. www. Researchpublish.com
5. International Journal of Computer Science and Information Technology
Research
Vol. 2, Issue 2, pp: (183-189), Month: April-June 2014,
6. http://www.gangte.net/2013/09/top-10-best-hacking-tools.html
7. http://whatishacking.org/
8. https://www.guru99.com/what-is-hacking-an-introduction.html