SILENT AS THE DEAD: A Deadly Cyber Chase Begins

by Sanjib Sinha

  Rahela said, “Well, I’m going to Calcutta tomorrow. Can we meet in the evening? How about that hotel in China Town – Day and Night, where I had once met a man who saved my life.”

  "Oh sure, meet you tomorrow."

  He heard her gleaming girlish giggle and it kept reverberating after the call was over.

  PG was all smiles again, murmuring, “Smart girl, you are. But…”

  He took a deep breath and thought, ‘It was good that I didn’t meet you in my younger days Rahela. I would have hurt you baby; as I did to my wife.’

  PG was all busy with his unfinished project again and tried to forget the past.

  Glossary

  Supari: An Indian slang for a kill contract.

  Hacking: A creative manipulation of code. It is not the same as any type of simple or complex computer programming which programmers generally write to create software. It is deeply associated with the pugnacious determination governed by curiosity and fuelled by the passion for inventing something new.

  Hacker: Creative people who love to manipulate code creatively. Hackers are generally divided into three categories: White Hat, Grey Hat and Black Hat.

  White Hat: A White Hat is an ethical hacker who helps others to find weaknesses in their system and help them to set up necessary safety methods to protect data. They always ask permission of the data owner before they pen-test their systems.

  Black Hat: They use the same hacking tools that are frequently used by the ethical hackers and sometimes they create their own malicious codes with the help of that software tools and use them for malicious intentions.

  Grey Hat: You can imagine a thin divide between White Hat and Black Hat. They are Gray Hats. They can use their knowledge for defensive or offensive purposes. It depends on the situation.

  Cracking: People completely misunderstand hacking and often equate with cracking. Cracking is an illegal activity. When somebody hacks into another machine and change program without permission, it’s called cracking.

  Cracker: Bad guys with malicious purpose usually break into a computer system without permission and steal data. Crackers are generally considered cyber criminals but common people and media world often mistakenly refer to them as hackers.

  Hacktivist: A hacker whose goals are social or political. He/she can report on-line anonymously from a country where free speech are attacked.

  Slacktivist: A supporter who does nothing but support a social or political campaign. He/she can register the support on-line just by liking a social media page.Code: It is the machine-readable text based instructions that govern a device or program.

  Compiler: It is a program that translates high-level programming language or code into executable machine language that starts talking with the hardware.

  Back Door: It is also referred as trap door. It is a hidden entry to a computer system or software that bypasses security measures. Logging in with the help of username and password is considered as normal security measure. There are lots of high security measures, such as retina scan come in recently. There are allegations that manufacturers have worked with government agencies to build backdoors into their products. Crackers often use Malware to exploit back doors.

  Malware: Spyware, adware, rootkits, viruses, and keyloggers are all the variants of Malware. They are designed to hijack, damage, or steal data from a device.

  Denial of service attack (DoS): Dos is designed to make a website or computer system unresponsive. It is often done with help of BOT or BOTNET that sends huge data simultaneously at one time so that the server crashes or overloads. It is also considered as a protest tool. A Hacktivist refers to these attacks as street protests.

  Distributed denial of service attack (DDoS): DDoS is actually DoS. It is done using a number of machines. As a protest tool volunteers use a network of machine to send big data to block something.

  Bot: It is a program that automates an action so that it can be done repeatedly at a higher rate than a human operator could do. Bots can be used in DoS. When a hacker hijacks an individual computer, it can be used to make up a botnet.

  Botnet: It is a group of computers controlled without their owner’s knowledge and used to send spam or make DoS.

  Zombies: Malware is also used as a tool to hijack the individual computers and make a spam networks. Together they are known as zombies. This is a large spam network, based in former Soviet Union.

  Doxing: You can expose a cracker or otherwise anonymous user by discovering and publishing the true identity. It can be done by tracing their online activities and publicly available accounts. Firewall: It is a system that uses hardware, software or both to prevent unauthorized access to a system.

  Clone Phishing: It is the modification of an existing email with a false link that tricks the owner into providing personal information.

  Keystroke Logging: It’s a very complex mechanism of tracking the key strokes pressed on a computer. Hackers use it to record login IDs and passwords. It can be done by sending a Phising E-Mail.

  Logic Bomb: It’s a virus that is secreted into a system to trigger a malicious action after a certain time.

  IP: It’s known as Internet Protocol Address. It’s a numeral fingerprints looking like this: 127.0.0.1. Each device, connected to a network using internet protocol, carries this number. A device IP identifies the location and the user. User’s activity can also be tracked through IP. There are ports or points that regulate the information traffic flow. Crackers use knowledge of IP address via one of its ports.

  Remote Access: When a target computer recognizes your keystroke as its own, it’s called under remote control. Gaining remote access means you run the remote target machine.

  Brute Force Attack: It’s also known as exhaustive key search. An automated search for every possible password to a system is done by this method. It’s used when there is no other method available. Brute Force Attack is considered to be inefficient method of hacking compared to Phising.

  Phishing: This method generally targets general people. Often experienced computer users also get tricked. It’s done via fake emails or links to a fraudulent websites. It tricks you into giving personal information – username, password, credit card number and many more.

  Spear-Phishing: It’s a more focused type of Phishing targeting one individual or small group of people.Social Engineering: It becomes increasingly difficult for the crackers to break 128-bit or 256-bit encryption with brute-force attack. For that reason crackers often con people into giving their confidential information by Phishing or Spear-Phishing.

  IRC: Internet relay chat is a protocol used by both groups and for one-on-one conversations. It’s often utilized by hackers to communicate or share files. Since this protocol is unencrypted, crackers barge in using packet sniffers to steal information.