What Do Hackers Actually Do?

Hacking is ever prevalent in today’s digital world, an you might be targeted more frequently than you’d like to believe.

In fact, TechReport announced that over 2,220 cyberattacks are launched daily, which means that there are at least 800,000 attempts made yearly. It only takes a single successful attack to cause havoc for individuals and businesses alike.

We often hear of devastating data breaches, and every so often someone we know may fall victim to cyberattacks like phishing or scam callers. But what does a hacker actually do and how can you protect yourself?
 

What Do Hackers Actually Do?

Hackers are more than the anti-social, fast-typing, hoodie wearing scruffs portrayed in film. In fact, it takes much more than simple coding to break into software.

A hacker rarely operates within the law or in an authorised capacity – such as red teaming, which is a form of ethical hacking – and the main structure of their malicious processes involve identifying weaknesses in the system and reverse engineering code to perform actions it normally would not do.

The methods hackers use vary from relatively simple strategies to more complex ones. Here are a few of the ways hackers exploit users:

Denial of Service (DoS / DDoS) Attacks

A DoS or DDos attack is a strategy that hackers use to crash websites. There are a ways ways hackers can achieve this, the most common method is to utilise a small army of devices to visit the website, ultimately overloading the system and causing the website to stop working.

These attacks take place through devices like the ones we use when they are infected with a virus, allowing the hacker to control them.

Hackers mostly use this strategy to blackmail websites into paying ransoms.

Stealing Personal Data

The most common reason why hackers want to gain access to individuals’ and businesses’ devices, is to exploit their confidential information such as passwords and credit card details.

There are a few different ways hackers can go about this. These strategies include:

SQL Injection: When we use our details to sign into a website, this information typically is stored in a database. When hackers gain access to a website and inject SQL (a certain type of code), they can display all the information stored in its database and steal the information.

Other Website Weaknesses: There are many ways hackers can gain unauthorised access to websites and manipulate it in ways it was not designed to. This could involve changing the website address, displaying information that should be confidential, or altering the verification process for logged-in users.

Phishing: A phishing attack entails creating a false authoritative avatar, such as an identical copy of a website, and using it to direct individuals to platforms where they enter their credentials. This is usually accessed through a link, and hackers can steal this information once the person has typed it.

Supply Chain Compromise: It is not uncommon for hackers tp target supply chains if they’ve unsuccessfully attempted to gain access to a company’s information. This could lead to thousands of user’s data being compromised.
 

Website Defacement Attacks

Website defacement attacks, when done successfully, enables the hacker to display anything they want on a website’s pages. Although this is less common now, it was very popular among hackers in the early days of the internet.

Hackers could use strategies like directory traversal to swop out the website’s files with files of their own, or they could break the passwords of website management tools to take advantage of any facilities the website may use.

Redirection strategies are also used to direct the user to a totally different website that may or may not look the same as the original. This does not involve breaking into the original site, but rather directs people to other websites under control of the hacker.

Stealing Sensitive Company Data

Hackers also commonly steal the intellectual property of companies. This could be for various reasons, like stealing product designs or financial details. They are able to access this information by doing the following:

Viruses: Companies with highly sensitive information will often have cybersecurity measures in place, making it very difficult for hackers to access their systems. Therefore, they will commonly try to infect the company’s system with a virus through strategies like spear phishing to obtain control of their software.

Social Engineering: This strategy is personal, and involves hackers pretending to be someone they’re not to gain access to sensitive information. They often use psychological tactics and may pretend to be an employee or friend, in order to extract sensitive information.

Insider Threats: This is when actual employees or staff inside the company behave maliciously towards the organisation, and can be as simple as downloading sensitive information to exploit it or sabotaging systems.

Network Attacks: These attacks involve highly advanced strategies to get through a company’s firewall (which is meant to protect the company systems from foreign and unknown internet sources), which enables the hacker to gain access into the organisation’s internal network. Hackers can stay here for minutes or months, taking whatever data they want.

Can A VPN Help Protect You From Hackers?

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) have many benefits, one of the most important being that it adds an additional layer of security to your online whereabouts to prevent hackers from gaining access to your private information.

Whether you’re streaming videos online, accessing questionable websites or performing a transaction on the internet, a VPN can significantly decrease the risk of falling victim to malicious hackers.

A VPN protect you from hackers in the following ways:

Keeping Your Privacy Safe On Public Wi-Fi

 
Free Wi-Fi, albeit convenient, can be a significant security risk as it’s nearly effortless for hackers to gain access to Wi-Fi signals and steal your personal data. They can also inject malware into your device, enabling them to take control of it.

A VPN prevents this from happening since it encrypts your data, which makes it impossible for potential hackers or eavesdroppers to read it. A VPN helps protect your privacy, even on on public networks.

Keeping Your Home Network Safe

 
Smart home networks can be targeted by hackers, and includes devices like your smartphone, smart watches, smart assistants, and even smart fridges. By hacking into these devices, hackers can steal your (very) personal information and even be able to track your whereabouts.

A VPN prevents this from happening by hiding your IP address, making your home devices undetectable to hackers.

Safeguarding Against Hacker Attacks

 
A VPN also prevents hackers from being able to attempt attacks on your devices. Theses attacks include malware infections, cookie theft, fake Wi-Fi hotspots, and man-in-the-middle attacks.

Through encrypting your data and hiding your IP address, a VPN mades it considerably more difficult for hackers to attack your devices and gain access to your personal data.

To conclude, hackers have many tricks up their sleeve, and often launch aggressive and highly sophisticated hacking attacks in order to steal company or personal information. A VPN makes it particularly difficult for hackers to gain access to your work systems and personal data and in effective measure one can take to protect themselves.