Cybercrime Exposed: Uncovering the Tactics of Black Hat Hackers

Black hat hackers, also known as crackers, are malicious hackers. Such hackers frequently have little regard for the rule of law. Black hats lack morality, often break laws, and break into computers with bad intentions, and they may breach an organization’s systems and data’s secrecy, integrity, or accessibility.

Black hat attackers may attack a system or network for various reasons. They may be doing so for the thrill of exploiting a system, specific information on it, or various other reasons. Social engineering is a skill that black hat hackers possess. While they may appear to be people who spend their days staring at a screen, they can be pretty effective at persuading victims to click on links or download files.

Black hat hackers are also referred to as cybercriminals. They employ advanced computer skills and knowledge for malicious purposes. Black hat hackers exploit computer systems, networks, and software vulnerabilities for personal gain or to cause harm. In this article, we will concentrate on a black hat hacker’s activities to infiltrate a computer system and wreak havoc.

• What does a black hat hacker do?
• Real-cases involving black hat hacking
• Black hat hackers’ favorite techniques
• Methods to prevent yourself from black hat hacking
• Laws in India against black hat hacking

Must Read – What is Cybercrime?

What Does a Black Hat Hacker Do? 

There are numerous activities that a black hat hacker carries out, such as:

Malware creation: Black hats create and distribute malware to weaken the security posture of a system or device. Trojan horses are a common type of malware.

Unavailability of services: Black hat hackers launch DDoS attacks on government websites and servers to disrupt operations and cause general chaos and destruction.

Perform social engineering scams: Black hat hackers create fake social media profiles of people you trust to manipulate you into disclosing confidential or banking information they can use fraudulently. Black hat hackers may also use the information you share online to guess your login details and bypass security measures.

Steal confidential information: By penetrating leaky databases, these hackers steal user data such as credit card details, Aadhar numbers, pan card numbers, etc.

Use phishing attacks: To spread malware or defraud people, black hat hackers employ a variety of social engineering attacks to trick others into doing things they should not.

Exploit security flaws: Black hat hackers are constantly looking for vulnerabilities to find ways to exploit them for personal gain. As a result, people who use out-of-date OS versions, software, plug-ins, apps, etc., are easy targets for black hat hacking.

Installing spyware: Black hat hackers install spyware on their targets’ devices to blackmail them. They could use that spyware to track their targets’ movements. This type of malware can capture snapshots of users’ tasks or grant the hacker remote access to their devices’ screens. After infiltrating the system, the black hat hacker could choose to intimidate victims if they do not pay the money.

Denial-of-Service (DoS) Attacks: Black hat hackers may launch DoS attacks to overwhelm targeted systems with excessive traffic or requests, making them unavailable to legitimate users. This can disrupt businesses, organizations, or online services.

Social Engineering: Black hat hacking employs social engineering techniques to manipulate and deceive individuals for their benefit. This can involve phishing emails, phone scams, or impersonation to trick people into revealing sensitive information or performing actions that compromise security.

Botnet Creation: Black hat hackers may create networks of compromised computers, known as botnets, by infecting numerous devices with malware. These botnets can be used for various purposes, such as launching large-scale attacks, spamming, or coordinating malicious activities.

You can also visit – What is Spyware & How to Protect Yourself From It?

Real Cases Involving Black Hat Hacking

Some of the actual cases involving black hat hackers are:

• In 1995, the FBI arrested a man named- Kevin Mitnick. In the 1990s, Kevin was a black hat hacker on the FBI’s most wanted list. Kevin breached dozens of other networks, stealing passwords and reading private emails.
• The FBI arrested a man named -Jeanson James Ancheta- in 2005. James was using the robotic worm to take control of 500,000 computers, including some that rightly belonged to the US military. He also sold botnet access in groups, generally up to 10,000 at a time. He was convicted of 5 years imprisonment in 2005.

You can also visit – What is Cybersecurity?

Black Hat Hackers‘ Favorite Techniques 

A black hat hacker’s methods are constantly evolving. They typically target private information such as email accounts, credit card information, and user credentials. When it comes to bigger fish, such as businesses, black hat hackers aim to steal business data or take down their websites.

An attacker can use various techniques to achieve their objectives. However, some of the preferred techniques employed by a black hat attacker are:

Phishing: It is an attack in which an attacker pretends to be a trusted entity to trick an individual into clicking on a malicious link, likely to result in malware set up or access to sensitive information.

You can also explore – What is a Phishing attack?

DDoS attacks: A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is a malicious attempt to render an online service inaccessible to users.

You can also explore – What is a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack?

Trojan horse: A trojan horse is a malicious program that appears to do one thing but does something else. Trojan horses can be disguised as free software, videos, music, or legitimate advertisements.

You can also explore – What is a Trojan horse attack?

Logic bombs: A logic bomb is a sequence of malicious content that is purposefully inserted into a program to cause harm to a network when certain conditions are met.

You must explore – What are logic bombs?

Some of the other popular techniques include:

• Keylogging
• Ransomware
• Fake W.A.P.
• Brute force
• Switch attacks
• Cookie theft
• Bait attack

Methods to Prevent Yourself from Black Hat Hacking  

Some of the best ways to prevent yourself from these hackers are to use:

Firewalls: A firewall can be configured to drop specific packets based on the packet’s protocol, source address, or destination address.

Intrusion Prevention Systems: IPSs detect potential network or server intrusions and take a predetermined action to stop the attack.

White hat hacker: Consider hiring a white hat hacker to perform a network penetration test to identify any vulnerabilities. With such a list, you can begin filling gaps you were unaware existed.

You can also explore – White Hat vs Black Hat Hackers: What’s the Difference?

Laws in India Against Black Hat Hacking

As the country moves toward a digital age in which everything is accessible with the touch of a button, the danger of personal information theft has become increasingly concerning. Numerous hacking attacks have occurred on Indian government websites, including state government and defense websites. As a result, the Indian government has enacted strict anti-hacking legislation, such as Section 43 and Section 66.

Section 43 defines a simple civil offence as one in which a person accesses a computer without the owner’s permission and extracts or damages the data.

Section 66B deals with the penalties for receiving stolen computer resources or information. The punishment is one year in prison or a fine of rupees one lakh or both.

Conclusion

Black hat hackers are responsible for the significant data breaches that make headlines yearly. Sometimes hackers steal users’ data maintained by companies or governments to humiliate them. So, rather than being sorry for not using one, practice safe browsing techniques and follow the preventive measures discussed above!