How to hack

How to hack. It’s a very often asked question with around 1,000,000 Google searches each month. I know that anyone that runs a hacking related website get’s asked this question daily. After searching the internet for a decent answer to this question, I found none, so I decided to answer it on my own once and for all.

How do I learn how to hack? What does it take to become a hacker?

So many people that would like to learn how to hack have an absolutely wrong mindset. They think there’s some simple secret to learning how to hack. Learning how to hack isn’t as simple as looking through some site HTML source code. For those of you that have had this mindset, drop it now, it will get you absolutely no where.

Learning how to hack will be much easier with a few qualities:

Patience - Learning how to hack will take time. If you aren’t a patient person, it’s most likely not something you should get into. I started learning how to hack a few years ago. Within those few years, I  gained a lot of knowledge, but I’m still learning. There will always be something else, something new to learn. The sky is the limit.

Curiosity - Curiosity plays a major role in learning how to hack. Curiosity will be one of the main forces that will push you to keep going, keep learning, and not giving up when something difficult arises.

Creativity - When attempting to hack something, many problems or challenges may arise that require more than just logic. Being creative and learning to think outside the box will be very helpful.

Dedication - If you are going to start to learn how to hack, don’t stop. From experience, I can tell you that if you are going to start learning how to hack, you must dedicate at least a couple days of the week to it. If you decide to take big breaks, you will forget information, and this will force you to start relearning that information to understand the more advanced topics that come up later on.

Hacking is a broad subject with many different categories. If you are going to start to learn how to hack, start with picking a category and a subject in that category. When I first began learning how to hack, I wanted to know EVERYTHING. For the first couple months a skipped from subject to subject, reading bits and pieces about everything. After a couple months, I realized that I knew just enough in most subjects to explain their basic concepts, but I couldn’t apply them to real world situations or execute the knowledge in any way whatsoever. I had wasted the time I could have spent mastering a certain topic.

Once you begin learning how to hack, you will notice that there are a vast amount of useful programs out there. Before you begin to use these programs, learn how they work and why they work. You aren’t a hacker if you just use point and click programs to do all the work for you. Learning how these programs work will open up many new doors. Ask yourself questions like these, why did this do what it did? What allowed it to do what it did? What’s going on in the background when I run this? How was this possible? Once you have an understanding of how and why things work and why things happen the way they do, you will be able to come up with new hacking methods and theories that could eventually end up in new technologies and vulnerabilities.

When learning how to hack, research the topic you are learning on your own. No one is going to do all the work for you. What do you think is the difference between the smartest most accomplished hackers and the people who are constantly asking dumb questions like “How do I hack hotmail!”? While the so-called hacker’s waste their time asking dumb questions and waiting for responses with easy solutions from someone else, the smart hackers are doing their own research and learning everything they can on their own. Of course occasionally everyone will needs some guidance, but not for every little thing. Also when you do your own research, you will learn 10 times more than if you were to get an answer from someone else. Remember, Google is your friend!

Eventually, you should definitely learn how to program. By learning how to program, you will be able to do so much more as a hacker. Programming creates endless opportunities. You will be able to fully understand how and why programs work; you will be able to understand how exploits work and how to create your own. With the ability to program, you will be able to understand and learn the most advanced topics of hacking.

Don’t limit yourself to one operating system. Learn Linux. Linux is used to run millions of servers on the net, so it is important to know how Linux works. Also, many of the best hacking programs are made exclusively for the Linux operating system.

One of the best methods to learning how to hack is to read books. There are many great professional books about all the aspects of hacking. A simple search of “hacking” on Amazon.com will bring up a huge list of awesome books.

Besides just reading books, you should join hacking community websites. It is important to be part of a community that is full of hackers of all skill levels. This is good for when you need help or when you wish to develop your skills by starting hacking related projects with other likeminded people. Also, interacting with other hackers will motivate you to keep learning.

Subscribing to hacking related blogs (like MrCracker.com) and podcasts is another great way to learn new things and stay up to date with the hacking scene news. Google reader is a great feed reader. You can start by subscribing to MrCracker.com by clicking here. Other  great resources are E-Mail lists. There are many E-Mail lists out there that send out weekly vulnerability reports or just newsletters. You can start by subscribing to the MrCracker.com E-Mail list on the right.

The best way to learn something and to remember it is by actually doing something with it! For example, after every time you learn something new, take that new knowledge and create a program related to it, write a tutorial about it or create a video about it for others to learn. This way, the information will stick and not become forgotten within a week.

Now that you know what it takes to become a hacker, and if you still think it’s for you, then… Start Learning! If you’d like a head start, I recommend getting The Hacker’s Underground Handbook.