Hacking for beginners- IP addresses and IP tracing in Gmail

This post will cover the following points:
1.IP addresses.
2.IP tracing.
3.How to find the IP address of the sender in Gmail.

IP Tracing:-
IP tracing is said to be one of the most important steps in Hacking a remote system because it gives more information about the system, the host on which resides, the potential weaknesses in the system and so on.
Thus, the first step in attacking a system is the identifying and locating the target. For doing this we need to know the ip address of the system. This is where IP tracing comes into the picture.But before going into details, it is important to understand a few things about ip addresses.

IP Address:-
Every system connected to the internet has a unique address which is called IP address or the Internet Protocol address. Just like the address of your home tells the location the IP address tells the other systems about your location on network. Thus, an IP address identifies your system among the millions of systems connected to the net. Every data packet sent or recieved by your system contains your IP address.

The IP addresses are designed in such a way that you cannot predict the location of the system just by looking at its fields. So, if somebody tells you that the location(or country) of a system is decided, say, by its third field or second field then that is completely false. However there are many tools and sites available which tell you the geograpical information just by entering the ip address.

Hacking Techniques: Phishing Basics

Phishing is another way to hack websites and gain personal data, the first one  the use of Keyloggers,  has been expained in an earlier post.
Phishing, as defined by Wikipedia is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
In simple terms, a phisher will create an exact duplicate of an original site and make victims think that it is the original one.The victims enter their vital details like credit card numbers, passwords etc which are then used by the phisher.
Very often, the victims are sent emails telling them to update their details of a website with a link to the fake website designed by the hacker which is convincing enough to be the original the users.The reasons given in the emails generally speak of database maintenance, upgradation of the site etc.
Phishers usually target sites having online payment methods and commercial websites like banks where transactions are involved. Phishing requires both extreme skill and social engineering because to create a website exactly like the genuine website is no mean task.

Hacking tips : How to break into Facebook, Google, Yahoo account ...

Hacking into a facebook or google or yahoo account is not difficult . In fact it can be achieved in a matter of hours provided the user of the account is an inexperienced fellow ( target guy). There are many ways of hacking into some body's email (gmail ,yahoo etc) account, but fb account can be hacked by using a keylogger.

Disclaimer

The aim of writing this blog is not to encourage hacking or any other illegal activity of this sort. It is only to make you aware of the different techniques and malpractices(like Hacking, Phishing etc) which might be used to target or victimise genuine users. ' Better safe than sorry ' goes the saying , but it wont be incorrect to say that ' better secure than sorry', in the recent times. Also, suggestions from visitors will be appreciated, so dont forget to comment and give feedback. Thankx.......

USB HACKING

Have you ever wondered what your friend has stored in his/ her laptop but wont tell you? well here is how you can find out .. :)

USB Hacking , as the name suggests, is the unauthorised and unauthenticated usage of a computer by the means of a usb drive or in simple words a pen drive.
In this , u do not use the operating system of the target computer for booting ( since you do not know the username and password , it wont let you access the files and folders.)
What we can do is use an operating system stored on a  pen drive for booting purposes. Ubuntu is an example of a free software that can be easily loaded on a pc without previously installing it.
So
Step 1 is to copy the setup of Ubuntu OS on a pen drive.
Step 2. Start the pc . press F2 for change in advanced boot settings. Change the priority of booting in the settings page , Keep ' Boot Via USB ' as the first boot option and restart the PC.
Step 3. Insert the pen drive and boot the pc with the OS on the pen drive.
Thus u can easily access the files and folders on the pc without knowing the password. :)

LINUX HACKING,

Hacking linux systems :

Linux systems can be hacked in the following manner. Consider a linux based system which is secured by a user password which you are not aware of.  Even though we do not know the password of the system we can still enter the system. The trick behind this is to change the password of the system to a new password without knowing the old password.

But before you proceed to do that I think that it would be helpful to understand how the linux based security works:

   GRUB – grand unified boot loader :

“GRUB is the reference implementation of the multi boot specification, which enables a user to have multiple operating systems to have on a system and choose which one to run when the pc starts. Grub can be used to select from different kernel images available on a particular partition.” It starts the UNIX kernel  

Run levels in linux –

There are 7 run levels in linux

Run level 0- halt / switch off

Run level 1-single user  mode without networking

Run level 2-with networking

Run level 3-console mode

Run level 4-not used

Run level 5- gui mode with networking

Run level 6 reboot

The following steps are for red hat linux

1>     Start the system and keep pressing down arrow key to stop booting on flash screen. The flash screen is the one where there the system asks u to select the os for booting (windows xp ,linux etc).

2>     Highlight the option of red hat linux

3>     Press ‘e’ – to edit the kernel and change the password

Three options will be displayed . out of the three, select the second option i.e.

/vmlinuz -2.6.18-8. El5 è kernel

4>Press ‘e’ to edit

5>Type 1 .press enter

Press  ‘b’ to boot the machine

4>     Now shell script will be displayed

5>     To change password type ‘passwd’ press enter

6>     Now it will ask to enter new password , so enter your new password

7>     To go in console mode with networking

Init 3. Press enter

Now ,  it will ask for user name and password  . So, now you can login through new password J