Media has contributed to increase the gap between laymen and hackers. The image of hackers is always related to some sort of criminals sitting in front of computers and and hacking something. Media imposes on people hackers are just hungry criminals on internet which just hack anything they want. Please note that "Not all hackers are criminals". There are three types of hackers. I would like to discuss about them before going ahead:
1. Black-hat hackers: These are underground hackers. This type of hackers actually try to hack into computers, networks and systems. Their intention is of course bad. Many of them steal private information or alter/change the information or data which can sometimes cause penalty to them or can land them in jail. These hackers actually perform what media calls "crime". Most people know hackers as only this type of hackers. but these are not the only group of people who are called as hackers. There is also something called "white-hat" hackers.
2. White-hat hackers: These hackers know how to attack, hack or crack something. They have extensive knowledge of computer hacking and security. They are aware of the hacking tools and they know actually how to hack something. But they don't utilize this for bad purposes. They don't illegally hack into anything and devastate the data or information. They are good people and they are appointed to protect the information. THEY TEST THE SECURITY OF NETWORKS, COMPUTERS AND TRY TO INCREASE THE SECURITY AND PROTECT SENSETIVE DATA AS THEY ARE AWARE OF HOW HACKING IS DONE. "If you know what the threat is and know how it is created, then you can do better in protection against it". Same is the thing what white-hat hackers do. They help in tracing, detecting, blocking and eliminating the threat of black-hat hackers.
3. Gray-hat hackers: The name is self-explanatory. These type of hackers perform the task of both black-hat and white-hat depending on the situation. They maybe originally black-hat hackers who are helping law force or maybe white-hat hackers who are going on the wrong way. They also maybe some people learning from underground hacker communities to help law force and police. These type of hackers play important role in attempts to hack something or protect something.
One more thing, I would like to clarify. Hacking is a cyber crime (if it is illegal). But all cyber crimes are not hacking. Means, hacking is a subset of cyber crimes. There are also other types of cyber crimes such as fraud, piracy, copyright, pornography etc.
Okay, now coming to the point. Please note that hacking is not that much easy. It is not the game of few clicks. It is not the case that open a tool, give the email ID, wait for some time and you will get the password of that person. Also, it is not the thing that you download one hacking tool and now you are ready to hack anything you want. Hacking is a vast subject and itself has many core topics. It has different types of hacking, different types of attacks, different types of tricks and thousands of different tools. Yes, Hacking is difficult. But not this much that you need to be a geek to learn that. You can learn hacking. At last, "a perfect combination of desire and perspire has nothing impossible". Unless you have deep interest and strong desire for hacking, try not to learn it. There is no specific age bar to learn hacking. It can be leant at any stage of life - depends on your willpower.
Now, let us come down to the point - How do I become a hacker? Well, the actual underground hackers have acquired their knowledge from the google. Google is the friend from which they learn hacking. Actually, just learning from google is not a satisfying thing because you are not learning, you are searching for a particular thing. You need to join a course to learn hacking. There maybe many local courses available for 'ethical hacking' (ethical hacking is just same as hacking, but the white-hat way). The only internationally accepted course covering most of the hacking is Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) which is offered from EC-Council. When you complete this course, you are actually treated as hacker. There is a condition. You cannot go in black-hat and start illegal hacking if you finish this course. You must remain as white-hat or gray-hat hacker after this course. If you don't obey, please keep using google rather than attending this course. There are other courses about Information Security (not hacking!) which are also good, but for pure hacking, it is the only recommended one. You can do this course and once finished, you are actually treated as a hacker. Means, you have crossed the gap between laymen and hackers and are now sitting within other hackers. Please note that this exam is not easy. People say that you need to struggle to pass this exam. All other details can be found at their site. About the things which you need to know before starting this course, or about the foundation things before this course, I will discuss them in next post about CEH.
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