How hackers pick their victem

[X-Sane]

Alot of time a "hacker" will pick a very specific target, such as someone who has gotten on their bad side or that might have a secrect that they want to know. Another reason is payment many "hackers" do assignments for some sort of payment, the lets say "consumer" might have a certain victim in mind but not know what they are doing so they will hire someone with a little more knowledge to do the job for them.
Hate or Be Hated ; )

[fl34bit3]

Ive got a couple links you might want to look at.
http://www.linuxvoodoo.com/resources/security/enemy/
http://www.linuxvoodoo.com/resources/security/motives/

These two papers go into a bit of detail on script kiddies and how they pick their victims as well as helping to protect yourself from them. You can see all of the papers in the series named "Know Your Enemy" here http://www.linuxvoodoo.com/resources/security/

PeacE
-BoB

[knoledgesponge]

The Community isn't like that anymore, and I have never seen it while it is. If you claim to have done something cool, then people dont believe you, and if you prove it the "authorities" get ya. Either way you dont really win. Why not do it, if at all, just to learn and not to brag at all?

[riya_here]

mostly crackers are teenagers on an average... n most of them either have a purpose, or just wanna check their knowledge... most of them just do "hacking", "script-kidding" etc. for bragging....

[TheGh0st]

Originally posted here by NorthernLytes
no real hacker is going to go into someone computer and hack them. Thats for crackers or "script kiddys" that like to do malicious things and destroy easy targets, they have no idea of a challenge. they take the easy way instead of finding something to aquire knowledge from.

That would depend on how easy it would be for them.. human nature rules the land. Even a pro will take a shortcut to get home or win a race. They start out curious and then it becomes a disease to them and they can not stop, the key to their success is their ability to retain knowledge. Anyone can learn anything they want... but can they retain it and retrieve it at will.

Should have a new cate called leakers LoL for the 1's 2 dumb to retain the power. They do try and and they even find the answers but in the end they are not capable of retaining the amount of information needed to draw a target in the right place from the sky... (jk) only a few will understand that last part.

[MrLinus]

Originally posted here by thehorse13
Just to bring everyone up to speed, the "politically correct" term to use these days is, "attacker".



Also, attackers' motivation will be different from case to case but there are a few major categories as I see it (and those at Foundstone):

1) Curiosity
2) Entertainment
3) Political Reasons
4) Desire for info
5) Thrill of gaining root
6) Attempt to compromise additional systems.
7) Trophy hunting to gain status

-TH13

Wanted to add a few more to this list:

8) hacktivism (usually for defacements; supporting a particular cause like Red Cross aid for areas hit by major natural disasters and no one cares; best example: NASA defaced to ask for Red Cross support after India (?) was hit by major earthquake shortly after 9/11)
9)Mount Everest reason (just because).

[souleman]

a cracker is a person that cracks copywrite protection schemes. It has nothin gto do with attacking computers. The correct term is malicious hacker.

But this is an old discussion and completely pointless.

[Juridian]

To bring up another old discussion that is completely pointless....Souleman is my hero.

[Noia]

I prefere to do all my hacking with a Picaxe!

[dogus18]

If you wanna know try out the middle east and turkish sites because they are weak in general. The best place to start with is search for turkish and middle east sites from yahoo and apply security checks with nessus to find the holes. Than it is up to you...