Hacking For Dummies, 4th Edition

Chapter 2

Cracking the Hacker Mindset

In This Chapter

Understanding the enemy

Profiling hackers and malicious users

Understanding why attackers do what they do

Examining how attackers go about their business

Before you start assessing the security of your systems, you may want to know something about the people you’re up against. Many information security product vendors and other professionals claim that you should protect your systems from the bad guys — both internal and external. But what does this mean? How do you know how these people think and work?

Knowing what hackers and malicious users want helps you understand how they work. Understanding how they work helps you to look at your information systems in a whole new way. In this chapter, I describe the challenges you face from hackers, the people actually doing the misdeeds, and their motivations and methods. This understanding better prepares you for your ethical hacking tests.

What You’re Up Against

Thanks to sensationalism in the media, public perception of hacker has transformed from harmless tinkerer to malicious criminal. ...