-: Now, as I promised you, 2 2
this course is going to be highly practical. 3 3
But I also promised that I will not neglect the theory. 4 4
Now, what we mean by hacking 5 5
is being able to gain access to a system 6 6
that you're not supposed to have access to. 7 7
So for example, logging into an email account 8 8
that you're not supposed to have access to 9 9
is considered hacking that account. 10 10
Gaining access to a remote computer 11 11
that you're not supposed to have access to 12 12
is hacking that computer. 13 13
Reading information that you're not supposed 14 14
to be able to read, again, is considered hacking. 15 15
So you can see that there is a large number of ways 16 16
to hack into a system, and the word hacking 17 17
can refer to a number of things, 18 18
but the main concept is the same, 19 19
gaining access or being able to do things 20 20
that you're not supposed to be able to do 21 21
is considered hacking. 22 22
Now, there are three main types of hackers. 23 23
We have the black-hat hackers, 24 24
these are the bad people that hack systems illegally 25 25
in order to steal money, 26 26
or to achieve their own illegal goals. 27 27
The second part of hackers are the white-hat hackers. 28 28
So this is us, these people use the same techniques 29 29
used by the black-hat hackers, 30 30
and they also hack into systems. 31 31
But they only hack into systems 32 32
that they have permission to hack 33 33
in order to test the security of the systems. 34 34
And finally, we have the gray-hat hackers. 35 35
These are a mixture of the two, 36 36
so they'll hack into any system, 37 37
even if they don't have permission 38 38
to test the security of the system. 39 39
But they will never steal money or damage that system, 40 40
and in most cases, they'll go ahead 41 41
and tell the administrator of that system. 42 42
But what they do is still illegal 43 43
because they test the security of systems 44 44
that they do not own, or do not have permission to test. 45 45
Now, one big question that people always ask is why hacking? 46 46
Why teach or learn hacking? 47 47
Well, hacking is an existing industry, 48 48
there are lots of job opportunities for ethical hackers, 49 49
for people like us, who would go ahead 50 50
and test the security of systems 51 51
to make sure that these systems are secure 52 52
and not vulnerable to black-hat hackers. 53 53
There is actually a huge demand 54 54
for ethical hackers these days 55 55
because of the increased amount of hacking attacks. 56 56
So we hear on the daily big systems 57 57
and big companies are getting hacked. 58 58
Not so long ago, Uber got hacked, 59 59
and information of more than 56 million users were exposed. 60 60
So companies like Uber, Facebook, and Google, 61 61
they hire hackers in order to try 62 62
and hack into their systems, 63 63
and tell them where the weaknesses are 64 64
so that they can fix it. 65 65
They also have bug bounty programs 66 66
where they literally ask all the hackers around the world 67 67
to go ahead and try to hack into their websites 68 68
and with their web applications, and if they could, 69 69
they will pay them a bounty for the bugs that they find.