01-04-2011, 03:31 PM
Presented by:
Barkat Amirali Jiwani
R. Sandeep
[attachment=11509]
ABSTRACT
The common problem faced today by all the computer professionals around the world is the security of their computers. Now, why do they need security? What are they afraid of? The answer is very simple and well known, a “HACKER”.
Hacking is a perennial concern for anyone who is into computer technology, either as a novice or as an expert. ‘Hacking’ and ‘Hackers’ are terms that generally tend to have a negative effect on people. Most people straightaway start associating ‘Hackers’ with computer criminals or people who cause harm to systems, release viruses etc .Now a days the media has been wrongly and outrageously referring to computer criminals as ‘Hackers’.
We on the other hand do not go with the media and people who refer computer criminals as ‘Hackers’. We at the same time do not blame them for holding such a negative opinion. The fact is that one tends to accept what is being fed to him. Well ‘Hackers’ in reality are actually good, pleasant and extremely intelligent people, who by using their knowledge in a constructive manner help organizations to secure documents and company secrets, help the government to protect national documents of strategic importance and even sometimes help justice to meet its ends by ferreting out electronic evidence. Rather, these are the people who help to keep computer criminals on the run. And that is why we insist that each and everybody who is somehow involved in computer technology need to know the hacking skills to protect his/her system from other hackers. After all a soldier who is well equipped with weapons is sent to war and not a farmer. We mean computer security starts with an educated user.
WHO’S THE CRACKER ANYWAYS????
What people should understand here is that there is a lot of difference between a ‘Cracker’ and a ‘Hacker’. A cracker on the other hand breaks into other systems and does the unwanted things, which are illegal .The reason they do this because they want to get quick popularity. But they fail to understand that this popularity is negative. Besides, cyber crime has become punishable under law, and is considered a serious offence. In fact the most successful people in computer technology are well worse with hacking skills.
SECURITY AND WINDOWS
Now a days all the computers, which we use, are operated by windows OS.We also use Unix OS. Unix is considered to be the most secured OS. Whenever the two words ‘Security’ and ‘Windows’ come in a same sentence it would force any hacker (and naughty crackers too) to laugh because every hacker starts learning hacking skills from Windows only. Here’s one universal way that would work on all systems. To do this reboot the system and wait for the message:
“Starting windows 9x”
When you see this on the screen, press F8. The boot menu will come up, select option 7, to boot into DOS. Then go to windows directory by typing:
C:/>cd windows
Then, rename all files with the extension .pwl by typing the following command:
C:/>cd windows>ren*.pwl*.xyz
Now, when the windows password login pops up, you can write anything in the place where the password has got to be typed. As you have renamed the password files, windows cannot find that file so when you enter a password. Windows just takes it as the original password.
There’s another way to crack the Windows login password. The Windows (9X) password is passed through a very weak algorithm and is quiet easy to crack. Windows stores this login password in *.pwl files in the c:\windows directory, as we mentioned earlier. The .pwl files have the filename, which the username corresponding to the password stored by it. We have taken a .pwl file from a Win 98 machine running IE5.0 and is as follows:
Now going through the contents of this .pwl file, we are not sure what the first five lines signifies, but the last two lines are the password but in an encrypted form. To actually crack the password, one needs a simple cracker coded in C.
PROTECTION (IT’S A BEGINNING………)
Now if Windows login password can be hacked so easily then where is the security for our system? Well only a hacker or a person with hacking skills can make his/her machine safer. He/she would (we did the same to our systems) probably disable the F8 key or the boot up key. They need to follow a simple procedure. They just need to edit the msdos.sys file by making it writeable and opening it in WordPad. Then by just adding the following:
Bootkeys=0
Bootdelay=0
makes the machine safer. Then save msdos.sys.
Unix is considered to be the most secure OS. The method used to store password is definitely more safe and secure in Unix systems. In most Unix systems, one will find that the passwords are stored in file called ‘passwd’ which is located at /etc/passwd. The password file has many lines of the following basic structure:
Brains: RqX6dqOZsf4BI: 2:3: Priyanka:/ home/priyanka:/bin/bash
The above line can be broken and arranged as follows:
User name : Brains
Encrypted password : RqX6dqOZsf4BI
User number : 2
Group number : 3
Actual name : Priyanka
Home directory : /home/priyanka:
Type of shell : /bin/bash
Now with the help of password cracker the above password can be cracked. Here also the security is breached easily.
THE FOUR CORNERS OF SECURITY
Security breach can happen from either inside or outside the network. Outside threats can come in either through the Internet gateway or e-mails. Inside threats can be from a disgruntled hacker or an imposter gaining access to a vulnerable system. The imposter could be a human being or a malicious code like a worm or Trojan that infects an unpatched system. Given the sources of threats, one need to consider four aspects when implementing network security:
FIREWALLS:- When someone enters a building, the security guard usually greets them. If they have an appropriate identification badge, they show it to the guard or swipe it through a reader. If all is OK, they pass through the guard’s checkpoint. However, if something’s wrong or if they are a visitor, they must first stop at the guard desk.
On a computer, the firewall acts much like a guard when it looks at network traffic destined for or received from another computer. The firewall determines if that traffic should continue on to its destination or be stopped. The firewall “guard” is important because it keeps the unwanted out and permits only appropriate traffic to enter and leave the computer.
To do this job, the firewall has to look at every piece of information – every packet – that tries to enter or leave a computer. Each packet is labeled with where it came from and where it wants to go. Some packets are allowed to go anywhere (the employee with the ID badge) while others can only go to specific places (visitors for a specific person). If the firewall allows the packet to proceed (being acceptable according to the rules), it moves the packet on its way to the destination. In most cases, the firewall records where the packet came from, where it’s going, and when it was seen. For people entering a building, this is similar to the ID card system keeping track of who enters or the visitor signing the visitor’s log.
PATCH MANAGEMENT If one of our appliances broke, we’d probably try to have it repaired. We’d call a repairperson whom we hope could do the job. What do we do when a software “appliance” – a program – or the operating system itself breaks? How do we restore the functions that they provide? Most vendors provide patches that are supposed to fix bugs in their products. Frequently these patches do what they’re supposed to do. However, sometimes a patch fixes one problem but causes another. For example, when a repairperson fixes an appliance they might have scratched the floor or damaged a countertop. For a computer, the repair cycle might have to be repeated until a patch completely fixes. Vendors often provide free patches on their web sites. They also provide a recall-like service. We can receive patch notices through email by subscribing to mailing lists operated by the programs’ vendors. Some vendors have gone beyond mailing lists. They provide programs bundled with their systems that automatically contact their web sites looking for patches specifically for our home computer.
ANTI VIRUS/ANTI-SPAM: If someone rang our doorbell and wanted to come into our living space to sell us something or to use our telephone, we’d need to make a decision whether or not to let them in. If they were a neighbor or someone we knew, we’d probably let them in. If we didn’t know them but believed their story and found them to be otherwise acceptable, say they were neat and clean and not threatening, we’d probably also let them in, but we’d watch them closely while they were in our space. Anti-virus programs work much the same way. These programs look at the contents of each file, searching for specific patterns that match a profile – called a virus signature – of something known to be harmful. For each file that matches a signature, the anti-virus program typically provides several options on how to respond, such as removing the offending patterns or destroying the file.
INTRUSION-DETECTION SYSTEM (IDS):-
Our network is being scanned for vulnerabilities. This may happen only once a month or twice a day, regardless, there are people out there probing our network and systems for weaknesses. If we have a system or network connected to the Internet, we become a target. By taking some of the basic measures we will be better prepared to log and identify these attempts. Once identified, we can track these probes and gain a better understanding of the threats to our network and react to these threats.
As far as Internet is concerned, a cracker can easily crack into anybody’s system from anywhere. The only way the victim can protect his/her system is by knowing hacking skills. As already mentioned, we insist that everybody should know the basics of hacking skills at least. Well have you ever wondered where Windows stores the Internet connection password when you have enabled the ‘save password’ option in the ‘connect to’ dialogue box of the dial up connection?
Barkat Amirali Jiwani
R. Sandeep
[attachment=11509]
ABSTRACT
The common problem faced today by all the computer professionals around the world is the security of their computers. Now, why do they need security? What are they afraid of? The answer is very simple and well known, a “HACKER”.
Hacking is a perennial concern for anyone who is into computer technology, either as a novice or as an expert. ‘Hacking’ and ‘Hackers’ are terms that generally tend to have a negative effect on people. Most people straightaway start associating ‘Hackers’ with computer criminals or people who cause harm to systems, release viruses etc .Now a days the media has been wrongly and outrageously referring to computer criminals as ‘Hackers’.
We on the other hand do not go with the media and people who refer computer criminals as ‘Hackers’. We at the same time do not blame them for holding such a negative opinion. The fact is that one tends to accept what is being fed to him. Well ‘Hackers’ in reality are actually good, pleasant and extremely intelligent people, who by using their knowledge in a constructive manner help organizations to secure documents and company secrets, help the government to protect national documents of strategic importance and even sometimes help justice to meet its ends by ferreting out electronic evidence. Rather, these are the people who help to keep computer criminals on the run. And that is why we insist that each and everybody who is somehow involved in computer technology need to know the hacking skills to protect his/her system from other hackers. After all a soldier who is well equipped with weapons is sent to war and not a farmer. We mean computer security starts with an educated user.
WHO’S THE CRACKER ANYWAYS????
What people should understand here is that there is a lot of difference between a ‘Cracker’ and a ‘Hacker’. A cracker on the other hand breaks into other systems and does the unwanted things, which are illegal .The reason they do this because they want to get quick popularity. But they fail to understand that this popularity is negative. Besides, cyber crime has become punishable under law, and is considered a serious offence. In fact the most successful people in computer technology are well worse with hacking skills.
SECURITY AND WINDOWS
Now a days all the computers, which we use, are operated by windows OS.We also use Unix OS. Unix is considered to be the most secured OS. Whenever the two words ‘Security’ and ‘Windows’ come in a same sentence it would force any hacker (and naughty crackers too) to laugh because every hacker starts learning hacking skills from Windows only. Here’s one universal way that would work on all systems. To do this reboot the system and wait for the message:
“Starting windows 9x”
When you see this on the screen, press F8. The boot menu will come up, select option 7, to boot into DOS. Then go to windows directory by typing:
C:/>cd windows
Then, rename all files with the extension .pwl by typing the following command:
C:/>cd windows>ren*.pwl*.xyz
Now, when the windows password login pops up, you can write anything in the place where the password has got to be typed. As you have renamed the password files, windows cannot find that file so when you enter a password. Windows just takes it as the original password.
There’s another way to crack the Windows login password. The Windows (9X) password is passed through a very weak algorithm and is quiet easy to crack. Windows stores this login password in *.pwl files in the c:\windows directory, as we mentioned earlier. The .pwl files have the filename, which the username corresponding to the password stored by it. We have taken a .pwl file from a Win 98 machine running IE5.0 and is as follows:
Now going through the contents of this .pwl file, we are not sure what the first five lines signifies, but the last two lines are the password but in an encrypted form. To actually crack the password, one needs a simple cracker coded in C.
PROTECTION (IT’S A BEGINNING………)
Now if Windows login password can be hacked so easily then where is the security for our system? Well only a hacker or a person with hacking skills can make his/her machine safer. He/she would (we did the same to our systems) probably disable the F8 key or the boot up key. They need to follow a simple procedure. They just need to edit the msdos.sys file by making it writeable and opening it in WordPad. Then by just adding the following:
Bootkeys=0
Bootdelay=0
makes the machine safer. Then save msdos.sys.
Unix is considered to be the most secure OS. The method used to store password is definitely more safe and secure in Unix systems. In most Unix systems, one will find that the passwords are stored in file called ‘passwd’ which is located at /etc/passwd. The password file has many lines of the following basic structure:
Brains: RqX6dqOZsf4BI: 2:3: Priyanka:/ home/priyanka:/bin/bash
The above line can be broken and arranged as follows:
User name : Brains
Encrypted password : RqX6dqOZsf4BI
User number : 2
Group number : 3
Actual name : Priyanka
Home directory : /home/priyanka:
Type of shell : /bin/bash
Now with the help of password cracker the above password can be cracked. Here also the security is breached easily.
THE FOUR CORNERS OF SECURITY
Security breach can happen from either inside or outside the network. Outside threats can come in either through the Internet gateway or e-mails. Inside threats can be from a disgruntled hacker or an imposter gaining access to a vulnerable system. The imposter could be a human being or a malicious code like a worm or Trojan that infects an unpatched system. Given the sources of threats, one need to consider four aspects when implementing network security:
FIREWALLS:- When someone enters a building, the security guard usually greets them. If they have an appropriate identification badge, they show it to the guard or swipe it through a reader. If all is OK, they pass through the guard’s checkpoint. However, if something’s wrong or if they are a visitor, they must first stop at the guard desk.
On a computer, the firewall acts much like a guard when it looks at network traffic destined for or received from another computer. The firewall determines if that traffic should continue on to its destination or be stopped. The firewall “guard” is important because it keeps the unwanted out and permits only appropriate traffic to enter and leave the computer.
To do this job, the firewall has to look at every piece of information – every packet – that tries to enter or leave a computer. Each packet is labeled with where it came from and where it wants to go. Some packets are allowed to go anywhere (the employee with the ID badge) while others can only go to specific places (visitors for a specific person). If the firewall allows the packet to proceed (being acceptable according to the rules), it moves the packet on its way to the destination. In most cases, the firewall records where the packet came from, where it’s going, and when it was seen. For people entering a building, this is similar to the ID card system keeping track of who enters or the visitor signing the visitor’s log.
PATCH MANAGEMENT If one of our appliances broke, we’d probably try to have it repaired. We’d call a repairperson whom we hope could do the job. What do we do when a software “appliance” – a program – or the operating system itself breaks? How do we restore the functions that they provide? Most vendors provide patches that are supposed to fix bugs in their products. Frequently these patches do what they’re supposed to do. However, sometimes a patch fixes one problem but causes another. For example, when a repairperson fixes an appliance they might have scratched the floor or damaged a countertop. For a computer, the repair cycle might have to be repeated until a patch completely fixes. Vendors often provide free patches on their web sites. They also provide a recall-like service. We can receive patch notices through email by subscribing to mailing lists operated by the programs’ vendors. Some vendors have gone beyond mailing lists. They provide programs bundled with their systems that automatically contact their web sites looking for patches specifically for our home computer.
ANTI VIRUS/ANTI-SPAM: If someone rang our doorbell and wanted to come into our living space to sell us something or to use our telephone, we’d need to make a decision whether or not to let them in. If they were a neighbor or someone we knew, we’d probably let them in. If we didn’t know them but believed their story and found them to be otherwise acceptable, say they were neat and clean and not threatening, we’d probably also let them in, but we’d watch them closely while they were in our space. Anti-virus programs work much the same way. These programs look at the contents of each file, searching for specific patterns that match a profile – called a virus signature – of something known to be harmful. For each file that matches a signature, the anti-virus program typically provides several options on how to respond, such as removing the offending patterns or destroying the file.
INTRUSION-DETECTION SYSTEM (IDS):-
Our network is being scanned for vulnerabilities. This may happen only once a month or twice a day, regardless, there are people out there probing our network and systems for weaknesses. If we have a system or network connected to the Internet, we become a target. By taking some of the basic measures we will be better prepared to log and identify these attempts. Once identified, we can track these probes and gain a better understanding of the threats to our network and react to these threats.
As far as Internet is concerned, a cracker can easily crack into anybody’s system from anywhere. The only way the victim can protect his/her system is by knowing hacking skills. As already mentioned, we insist that everybody should know the basics of hacking skills at least. Well have you ever wondered where Windows stores the Internet connection password when you have enabled the ‘save password’ option in the ‘connect to’ dialogue box of the dial up connection?
