Hacking For Regular IT People - Why Do We Hack?

Previously, I discussed the origins of the word “hacking” and the motivations around it from early phone phreakers, red-boxers, and technology enthusiasts.

Today, most hackers can be boiled down to Black Hats and White Hats. The hat analogy comes from old Western movies, where the good guys wore white and the bad guys wore black. Both groups have different reasons for hacking.

Spy vs. Spy

The White Hat/Black Hat analogy always makes me think of the old Spy vs. Spy comic in Mad Magazine. These two characters—one dressed all in white, the other all in black—were rivals who constantly tried to outsmart, steal from, or kill each other. The irony was that there was no real distinction between good or evil. In any given comic, the White Spy might be trying to kill the Black Spy or vice versa, and it was impossible to tell who was supposed to be the good guy or the bad guy.

Black Hat hackers are in it to make money, pure and simple. There are billions of dollars lost every year to information breaches, malware, cryptoware, and data ransoming. Often tied to various organized crime syndicates (think Russian Mafia and Yakuza), these are obviously the “bad guys” and the folks that we, as IT professionals, are trying to protect ourselves and our organizations from.

The White Hats are the “good guys," and if we practice and partake in our own hacking, we would (hopefully) consider ourselves part of this group. Often made up of cybersecurity and other information security professionals, the goal of the White Hat is to understand, plan for, predict, and prevent the attacks from the Black Hat community.

Not Always Black or White

There does remain another group of people whose hacking motivations are not necessarily determined by profit or protection, but instead, are largely political. These would be the Gray Hats, or the hackers who blur the distinction between black and white, and whose designation as “good or bad” is subjective and often depends on your own point of view. As I mentioned, the motivation for these groups is often political, and their technical resources are frequently used to spread a specific political message, often at the expense of a group with an opposing view. They hack websites and social media accounts, and replace their victims’ political messaging with their own.

Groups like Anonymous would fall into this category, the Guy Fawkes mask-wearing activists who are heavily involved in world politics, and who justify their actions as vigilantism. Whether you think what they do is good or not depends on your own personal belief structure, and which side of the black/white spectrum they land on is up to you. It’s important to consider such groups when trying to understand motivation and purpose, if you decide to embark on your own hacking journey.

What’s in It for Us?

Because hacking has multiple meanings, which approach do we take as IT pros when we sit down for a little private hacking session? For us, it should be about learning, solving problems, and dissecting how a given technology works. Let’s face it: most of us are in this industry because we enjoy taking things apart, learning how they work, and then putting them back together. Whether that’s breaking down a piece of hardware like a PC or printer, or de-compiling some software into its fundamental bits of code, we like to understand what makes things tick, and we’re good at it. Plus, someone actually pays us to do this!

Hacking as part of our own professional development can be extremely worthwhile because it helps us gain a deep understanding of a given piece of technology. Whether it is for troubleshooting purposes, or for a deep dive into a specific protocol while working toward a certification, hacking is one more tool you can use to become better at what you do.

Techniques you use in your everyday work may already be considered “hacks." Some tools you may have at your disposal may potentially be the same tools that hackers use in their daily “work." Have you ever fired up Wireshark to do some packet capturing? Used a utility from a well-known tool compilation to change a lost Windows password? Scanned a host on your network for open ports using NMAP? All of these are common tools that can be used by the IT professional to accomplish a task, or a malicious hacker trying to compromise your environment.

As this series continues, we will look at a number of different tools—both software and hardware—that have this kind of utility, and how you can use these in a way that will improve your understanding of the technology you support, as well as developing a respect for the full spectrum of hacking that may impact your business or organization.

There are some fun toys out there, but make sure to handle them with care.

As always, "with great power comes great responsibility." Please check your local, state, county, provincial, and/or federal regulations regarding any of the methods, techniques, or equipment outlined in these articles before attempting to use any of them, and always use your own private, isolated test/lab environment.