I recently had an interesting conversation with a friend. He had asked what I was currently doing and I’d told him I was learning how to hack. We went on to talk about hacking in general and I got rather interesting definitions from him about what it was.
So who is hacker really?
Before you go on reading this interesting guest post by John Wachira. Let me introduce you to the 2016 Annual Africa Hackon conference happening at the Michael Joseph Centre along Waiyaki way in Nairobi. Tickets are available at Ticket sasa here
Here is more info
According to Wikipedia, a hacker is “someone who seeks to exploit weaknesses in a computer system or computer network. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons; profit, challenge, enjoyment, evaluating weaknesses to help in removing them.”
Going by that definition, hackers can be classified mainly into two groups, White hats and black hats. White hats are the “good’ guys; they hack with the intention to evaluate how secure systems are or to make things better. Black hats on the other hand are the “bad” guys; they mainly hack for malicious intent; blackmail, extortion, you name it.
Before the information age, cyber security was non-existent because the cyber space was void. Today, almost everything revolves around it or is gearing towards the cyber world. You will agree that it’s rather pleasing to buy tickets online instead of queueing up for the same, it’s refreshing to perform bank transactions while you watch the rocking ocean waves under the setting sun in Watamu, there is so much flexibility in enrolling for classes without ever having to physically show up. It is so exciting when you meet with an old friend on social media whom you’d lost contact with a long time ago. Those are just some of the numerous perks that came with the information age; the cyber world. Well, every penny you get has two sides and that just one side of the coin. They always seem to have a yin-yang relationship. One good, the other bad. There other side of the coin is the contender; the dark side.
The laws of celestial mechanics dictate that when two objects collide, there is always damage of a collateral nature. We cannot do without technology, at the same time, we can’t tolerate the crimes that occur in the cyber world. Naturally, two sides are drawn, the good side versus the bad, in cyber matters, the whitehats versus the blackhats. A perpetual tug of war ensues between the two forces hence the emergence of Cyber Security.
According to Wikipedia, Cyber Security is the “protection of information systems from theft or damage to the hardware, the software and to the information on them, as well as disruption or misdirection of the services they provide.”
There are measures that you can take to prevent being a victim of cyber crime. They are seemingly simple yet very important security precautions. For instance, try as much as possible not to recycle or use obvious passwords. Create passwords with a mix capital letters, small letters, numbers and symbols. Such passwords are hard to break and often impossible to crack. They could save you a lot of trouble.
There are so many other forms of attacks that can be implemented to exploit a person or an organization. Man in the middle attacks, DOS, phishing, SQL injection to name a few. From a hacker’s perspective, hacking can be challenging but fun. The hacking shown in movies does not represent the real world. Nothing ever happens that fast. A hack could take days, sometimes weeks or even months. A surprising quality of good hackers is patience. If the bad guys are onto you, well, the least you could do is make it harder for them.
Late last year, I began looking into Cyber Security, the more I did, the more I got interested. I made deliberate efforts to learn about it and made my debut in the realm of hacking. I later on joined this group called Africahackon.
Africahackon is East Africa’s premier technical computer security collective which brings together the individual talents of the best and brightest security professionals in the region, through live presentations, engaging discussions and hands on demonstrations. We are connoisseurs in a full range of defensive and offensive security topics are well versed in the theoretical aspect of cyber security and masters on the practical and tactical angle of the art.
This month, AfricaHackOn has prepared an event; a conference that will be focusing mainly and largely on Cyber Security. Lots of live demos will be staged. I don’t know where else you can get the kind of action; seriously. If you are curious enough to want to know how the hackers do it, then this is your cue. Grab your ticket on the links provided below and see you at the Michael Joseph Center for the conference!
Written by John Wachira – AfricaHackOn Member.