DETERMINATION AND INGENUITY
Contrary to popular belief, the great majority of hacking involves minimal intellectual challenge or computer expertise. Although some system penetrations display incredible ingenuity, most rely on a few basic characteristics: excessive determination on the part of the hacker, reliance on human fallibility, and hours of boring work. Armed with only a minimal set of equipment – a computer, a modem, and some communications software – the cracker intending to cause harm relies heavily on three or four techniques to identify and penetrate new computer systems. By far the easiest technique is scavenging.
From the comfort of his home (over 85% of all known hackers are male), the cracker browses known systems and networks for electronic garbage that might provide some clue into system penetration. Among useful titbits might be descriptions of password systems and security plans, information about corporate hardware and software, even descriptions of successful hacks. The titbits are organised and stored for later use.
Another very common attack technique is password guessing. Computer users are amazingly unoriginal in the selection of passwords. A determined hacker often has to go no further than persistently checking the most commonly used passwords on known user accounts: names or initials of pets, friends, spouses, children; birth dates; sequential strings of letters or numbers and popular "cutesy" words ( e.g., sex, love, word, god, genius).
Another popular technique requires a special feature to the cracker's communication system. Called an auto-dialler, this program will systematically dial all possible combinations of telephone numbers within a given numeric range. While the hacker eats, sleeps or watches TV, his computer dials all numbers in the target area, one at a time. Most of these calls will be answered by people or answering devices or fax machines, but a few will reach the carrier tone of another computer's system. Those numbers are stored, and the cracker can later get to work accessing that system.
A potentially lethal new type of cracker attack is a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. A programmer secretly embeds a tiny software routine into a large number of computers. At a designated command or time the infected host computers all send messages to a single target network server, so that the Web site becomes inaccessible to legitimate Net surfers. The greatest problem is that the identity of the cracker is masked by the confusing flurry of e-mail causing the shutdown. In addition, the person launching an attack often has no association with the programmer who invented the software. Hackers who develop attack tools enjoy the challenge of writing the program but seldom launch their own attack. Instead, they post the tools on hacker Web sites for others to use.
1. ________ Specialised software that systematically dials all possible telephone numbers within a given range.
2. ________ Rubbish, unwanted things or waste material.
3. ________ Related to business corporations
4. ________ A certain amount of something that suddenly appears and moves in a quick way
5. ________ Small pieces of information
6. ________ To fix something firmly and deeply in a mass of surrounding matter
7. ________ Searching through electronic garbage for clues that may unlock the secrets of a target computer system.
8. ________ It helps you to find an answer to a problem or mystery
9. ________ Activity of people that are able to use or change the information in other people's computer systems without their knowledge or permission
10. ________ Pretty and sentimental