They sit in night at flickering monitors. Touch keys on the keyboard, gathering strange lines of the coded phrases. Seek to get an information access, to crack the server, it is simple to joke or commit a crime. These are hackers – geniuses and villains of a computer century.
In understanding who such hacker, is many conjectures, the legends and myths which are badly retold on pages of the different websites. For some people – it is the computer geniuses who are perfectly understanding "iron" and software. Capable to literally work wonders with one click of a mouse. For others are the teenagers digging in garbage, in attempts to find interesting a disk or the password of access to the necessary server. The psychologists deceiving users. The thieves stealing access to credit cards. There is no consensus, but the fact remains – hackers are and sometimes they create problems.
Geniuses and villains
It became famous in seventeen years. For the sake of overindulgence hacked telephone networks and redirected calls from subscribers. And illegal access to the computer of the Pentagon became one of its highest achievements. The most famous and most gifted hacker in the history – Kevin Mitnik. As a result it was caught and got penal in prison. Now left and directs own company on protection against the hacker attacks.
One more genius got access in five minutes to the air of NBC TV company, could organize own performance and all for the sake of overindulgence. McDonald's, to Yakh, Mikrosystems, Microsoft – and it is not the complete list of the companies injured by Adrian Lamo, the hacker, famous in the eightieth. Now it also works as the security expert, as well as Kevin.
It took a normal box of oat flakes, found a toy whistle inside and began to use it for cracking of telephone networks. On "happy" randomness it turned out that the signal published by a whistle, matches the frequency of an electrosignal of access to a longhaul telephone network. By right John Dreyper is considered one of the first hackers in the history as it was arrested for the activity in far seventieth years of the last century.
In fact, the hacker attack is an illegal access to different servers of the official organizations. It can be the same Pentagon, NASA, security services. However formally hacker attack it is possible to call even computer hacking of the neighbor in the site.
Knowledge of psychology of users is characteristic of it. For example, it is possible to call some organization, to be provided officially by the security expert checking networks of the company for vulnerability and to get access to corporate network. Such trick, of course, was very popular in the eightieth and ninetieth when computer literacy was not on the ball. But also now it sometimes works.
It is possible to organize the attack by means of viral infection of the target computer. Or to get access to it by means of programs of remote PC control. There is a lot of ways and their considerable number is known only to specialists.
Good or evil
On the one hand – the hacker, is the peculiar hooligan dreaming to study the computer thoroughly and to declare oneself. Sometimes it is just playful teenager, sometimes the adult man with megalomania. On the other hand – the hacker, is the villain transferring money from accounts of citizens to the. With the third – the specialist in a computer security who with pleasure will be employed by the known company.