Today, website hacking has become the biggest phenomenon in the digital world. Every day we hear some news about the hacking of websites on news channels or newspapers. It is very disheartening to see the huge loss occurring due to website hacking on people or on businesses who have put everything into building their business. Website hacking is a wide concept, so before learning about this you must understand the entire concept of this criminal attack.
What is Website Hacking?
Website hacking means when an unauthorized person gets access to a user’s website without their knowledge or permission and misuses the website for their interest. The hacker can gain confidential information, remove their website content, and deny the owner access to enter the website. The biggest danger of website hacking is that the hacker can even misuse the website to communicate a false political message that can lead the actual owner of the website into trouble.
WAPT / Penetration Testing
Web Application Penetration Testing (WAPT) is a testing technique for website applications. It is a procedure of gaining information by following a series of steps that are specially designed to find security flaws and malicious activities in the target system. Their work is to identify security faults in web application and their components. Here the ethical hacker uses the attacker’s perspective like SQL injection tests to fabricate a criminal attack.
Burpsuite
Burpsuite is a framework of web application penetration testing based on Java. It is the most common tool used by security professionals in the world which helps them to find faults and verify hackers’ activities affecting web applications. In short, Burpsuite can be defined as an Interception Proxy. It means that with the help of the Burp Suite proxy server, a penetration tester can construct their internet browser while browsing the user application.
LFI
Local File Inclusion (LFI) is a technique that attackers use to trick a target web application into running files or exposing files on the target webserver. Through an LFI attack, an attacker can steal sensitive data and can even lead to remote code execution and cross-site scripting (XSS). Usually, this attack is done when an application treats the file as input without proper approval. This allows the attacker to add mischievous files by manipulating the input. However, the attacker only uses local files to attack through LFI.
RFI
Remote File Inclusion (RFI) is a code injection attack through which an attacker put a link into an URL of a website that guides the website to install a malicious file. The word ‘remote’ in the name itself reveals that the website has sourced the file from another website. RFI is quite similar to LFI and is often underestimated by security professionals as both cyberattacks are elementary attacks.
Authentication Bypass
Authentication bypass in a website hacking is a cyber-attack through which an attacker performs various criminal operations by bypassing the device authentication mechanism. In simple words, authentication bypass is the weakest point where attackers gain access to the application and get users’ confidential data. This type of cyberattack is possible when the user doesn’t provide much attention to the security of the application, like not resetting the default password, failing to secure servers and data, having a file that lacks authentication, etc.
No Rate Limit Attacks
Before understanding the No Rate Limit Attack, you have to learn about the Rate Limit. Rate limiting is a methodology of limiting requests to control network traffic. For example, a web server set a limit of 15 requests per minute. So, if you try to send requests over 15 then the server will get an error and it will stop the person entering the application. Like, you get suspended from your social media account for a few hours when you enter the wrong password 3-4 times.
No rate limit attack is a defect in which the attacker doesn’t get any limitation on the number of attempts on a website server to steal sensitive information. This can lead to a serious issue if the attacker takes advantage of the user’s confidential data and misuses the information.
Xss
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) is a type of cyberattack, in which the attacker injects the malicious script into a trusted website. It is done when an unauthorized hacker uses a web application to send mischievous code in the form of a browser-side script to another user. These attacks are successful only when a web application uses input from a user output itself when it gets generated without encoding it.
Writing Reports
Report writing in penetration testing is a procedure of detailed explanation of report content and design including their examples, and the tester’s working experience on the server. This report is prepared to seek reference when any issue arises in the future. After preparing the report, it is shared with the senior and technical team of the organization. The report writing has to go through different stages - report planning, collecting information, drafting the first writing, and reviewing and finalizing the report.
Bug Bounty Techniques
The person or ethical hacker who successfully finds the vulnerability in the computer system or web applications is given a monetary reward which is called a bug bounty. It provides ethical hackers a platform to earn millions of rupees. These hackers use various techniques to detect mischievous activities like web pen testing, code review, automation, and recon.
Directory Brute-forcing
Directory brute force is a tool that detects invisible and mostly forgotten directories on a website. There are numerous automated tools and scripts that aim to retrieve the status of the directory which is brute-forced from a customized list of words. It is a common form of malicious attack which is used against websites and web servers that contain insecure or outdated software.
