Definition of Hacking

What is hacking?

This simple word has led many people to misleading definitions and confused end of the day. All they end up thinking is - Its "bad" - all thanks to unclear explanations available on the internet. Actually, it's not!

Lol, I know most Script Kiddies tend to confuse people with all this. I would like to share my understanding of this word (after being into cyber security for more than 3 years now and working with some of the best brains under the sun).

Here I go - According to Jon Erickon, the author of Hacking - The Art of Exploitation, a hack is an intelligent solution to a problem. Hackers are people who use rules of computers to bypass a security mechanism (using these hacks or intelligent solutions) .

Using this intelligence to do something good or something "evil" is a decision an individual makes end of the day. I appreciate the brighter part (although the darker could be far more lucrative in terms of money :P)

Google Hit by operation Aurora

Google made it to major news channels and news papers by its recent decision to pull out from China citing the reason of "highly sophisticated attacks". Some 30 other organizations were also hit along with Google.

What was this "highly sophisticated attack"? Neither Google nor any news channel give any information on this!

This happened due to weakness in Microsoft's Internet Explorer and a vulnerability in Acrobat reader. Code name - "Operation Aurora".

The exploit code for IE went live on internet yesterday. Metasploit user's - The framework has been updated to include this exploit. Help yourself by updating your copy ;)

For more details on operation aurora and the exploit code, visit George Kurtz's blog. Praetorian Security Group, LLC has also uploaded a video of the same.