Using a keylogger to intercept keys pressed on an infected computer can circumvent encryption used by email and secure chat clients. The collected data can often reveal usernames, passwords, and potentially compromising and private information which hackers abuse for financial ...more
Apple's macOS operating system is just as vulnerable to attacks as any Windows 10 computer or Android smartphone. Hacker's can embed backdoors, evade antivirus with simple commands, and utilize USB flash drives to completely compromise a MacBook. In this always-updated guide, ...more
Welcome back, my fledgling hackers! In the first part of my series on Wi-Fi hacking, we discussed the basic terms and technologies associated with Wi-Fi. Now that you have a firm grip on what Wi-Fi is exactly and how it works, we can start diving into more advance topics on h ...more
Welcome back, my budding hackers! One of the keys to becoming a professional and successful hacker is to think creatively. There is always a way to get into any network or system, if you think creatively. In previous tutorials, I have demonstrated ways to crack passwords on b ...more
With protests springing up across America, there's a chance you may have your first interaction with law enforcement. Many demonstrators will have their phones in-hand to film the action, which, sadly, could prompt an officer to demand the device and any self-incriminating dat ...more
Are you tired of your snoopy coworkers and friends lingering over your shoulder as you type in your security passcode? Unless you have the newer iPhone 5S with Touch ID that scans your fingerprint, you've only got a couple of security options—either a 4-digit numeric passcode ...more
While Wi-Fi networks can be set up by smart IT people, that doesn't mean the users of the system are similarly tech-savvy. We'll demonstrate how an evil twin attack can steal Wi-Fi passwords by kicking a user off their trusted network while creating a nearly identical fake one ...more
Hacking Wi-Fi is a lot easier than most people think, but the ways of doing so are clustered around a few common techniques most hackers use. With a few simple actions, the average user can go a long way toward defending against the five most common methods of Wi-Fi hacking, w ...more
Null Byte users have often requested video content, but the question has always been what format would best serve our community. This week, we partnered with Null Space Labs, a hackerspace in Los Angeles, to test the waters by hosting a series of talks on ethical hacking for s ...more
Hashes containing login passwords are transmitted between Windows computers on local Wi-Fi networks. By intercepting and decrypting these hashes using Responder and John the Ripper, respectively, we can learn a target's login credentials which can be later used to gain physica ...more
Since I first announced the new Null Byte recognition for excellence a few weeks ago, several of you have written me asking, "How can I study for this certification exam, and what material will be covered on the exam?" Now I have an answer for you. The White Hat Hacker Associa ...more
Passwords on Windows are stored as hashes, and sometimes they can be tough to crack. In certain situations, though, we can get around that by using the hash as is, with no need to know the plaintext password. It's especially interesting if we can manage to get the hash of an a ...more
Welcome back, my nascent hackers! Like anything in life, there are multiple ways of getting a hack done. In fact, good hackers usually have many tricks up their sleeve to hack into a system. If they didn't, they would not usually be successful. No hack works on every system a ...more
A rainbow table can be thought of like a dictionary, except instead of words and their definitions, it holds combinations of characters on one side and their hashed form on the other. What is a hash and why would you want to know what random combinations of characters are hash ...more
Losing your phone is a much bigger ordeal today than it was just 10 years ago. Our smartphones carry with them lots of sensitive data that, in the wrong hands, is capable of being used for identity theft and fraud. One of the smartest things you can do to help avoid such a di ...more
If you're ever faced with a situation of handing over your iPhone to law enforcement (or getting it taken forcibly), whether by the police, feds, or court system, there are things you can do to prevent them from getting access to all that potentially self-incriminating data. A ...more
The beauty of free apps is that, well, they're free. But as we all know, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Sometimes these "free" applications are only feature-limited mini versions, or they're so littered with ads that opting to pay for it is the only way to actually en ...more
Containers are isolated software instances representing applications, servers, and even operating systems—complete with all of their dependencies, libraries configuration files, etc.—and they're taking over the corporate world. The ephemeral, portable nature of containers help ...more
Welcome back, my hacker trainees! A score of my readers have been begging for tutorials on how to hack Wi-Fi, so with this article, I'm initiating a new series dedicated to Wi-Fi hacks. This will probably be around 6-9 articles, starting with the basics of the technologies. I ...more
What's your Twitter handle worth? If it's considered "desirable" (aka short and simple), it'll get you around 100 bucks, or, if you prefer, the affections of a teenage girl. A user with the handle @blanket found out the hard way that Twitter's security is atrocious when his a ...more
You've probably noticed how we like to stress the importance of a strong password. After all, there are still people out there who continue to use passwords like 123456 and even just "password". But passwords aren't the only barriers that protect your information. According t ...more
One thing that makes Signal Private Messenger better on Android over iOS is that you can better secure the app with a password or passphrase. Best of all, you don't need to install an app locker to get this working — you can do it right from inside Signal. Your messages alway ...more
This is second post in my series of posts for finding hacked accounts online. Please do read the part 1 of the post at http://null-byte.wonderhowto.com/how-to/find-hacked-accounts-online-part-1-0164611/ In this post we will explore more about finding hacked accounts online, w ...more
With over 10,000 possible combinations, a four-digit passcode may seem secure, but it's fairly easy for someone to crack your code—no matter how clever you think it is. Luckily, there are many other options for securing your iPhone's lock screen—especially if your running iOS ...more
If you somehow forgot the pattern, PIN, or password that locks your Android device, you might think you're out of luck and are destined to be locked out forever. These security methods are hard to crack by design, but in many cases, it's not entirely impossible to break into a ...more
After finding and monitoring nearby wireless access points and devices connected to them, hackers can use this information to bypass some types of security, like the kind used for Wi-Fi hotspots in coffee shops, hotels, and in flights high above the ground. By swapping their M ...more
There's always an iPhone in our list of top phones for privacy and security, due in large part to advanced security measures like Face ID, consistent iOS updates, and easy ways to prevent unwanted access and excessive data sharing. However, some of those options actually do th ...more
Malevolent hackers can divert your incoming calls and texts to any number they want, and they don't need to be a criminal mastermind to do it. Even friends and family members can reroute your incoming calls and messages so that they know exactly who's trying to reach you, and ...more
This is a how-to –video on using hydra 5.4 to crack FTP passwords. This video is intended for educational purpose only. It reveals the basics of hacking a FTP server using dictionary search technique. Here are the steps involved. 1) Download the software hydra 5.4 form the ...more
Lifehacker posts an article on the art of cracking weak passwords, courtesy of Internet standards expert, CEO of web company iFusion Labs, and blogger John Pozadzides. Pozadzides certainly knows a thing or two about password logic. (Note: this information is not intended to ha ...more
Windows 10 passwords stored as NTLM hashes can be dumped and exfiltrated to an attacker's system in seconds. The hashes can be very easily brute-forced and cracked to reveal the passwords in plaintext using a combination of tools, including Mimikatz, ProcDump, John the Ripper, ...more
Dr. Michael Pound, a computer science researcher and professor at the University of Nottingham, uses hashcat and 4 GPUs in parallel to go through 1o billion hashes a second in this Computerphile video. He calls his deep-learning server the "Beast." If you're new to cracking pa ...more
While password cracking and WPS setup PIN attacks get a lot of attention, social engineering attacks are by far the fastest way of obtaining a Wi-Fi password. One of the most potent Wi-Fi social engineering attacks is Wifiphisher, a tool that blocks the internet until desperat ...more
With a simple social engineering trick, sudo passwords can be captured in seconds without the target's knowledge. The passwords can then be saved to a file or exfiltrated to another computer on the network. After exploiting a system, penetration tester's and hackers will ofte ...more
Want to take advantage of your neighbor's super fast Wi-Fi connection? If they're smart, they probably have it password protected (otherwise you wouldn't be reading this, would you?). But if you have an Android phone, you can get back at them for always parking in your spot an ...more
Windows is a mess sometimes, full of problems. And your password just might be the biggest problem of all, if you've lost it, of course. What should you do when you forget the password to login to Windows system? Ask an administrator to reset the log on password for you. If y ...more
WikiLeaks. In recent weeks, it's been the hottest topic on the web. It's been attacked on a multinational level by political influence peddling. First, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman swayed Amazon's decision to stop hosting WikiLeaks. Then, Tableau Software removed graphs from th ...more
With FarmVille being one of the hottest Facebook games on the market, it's no wonder it's the primary target for scams and virus downloads. Anyone playing FarmVille is at risk, but the primary targets are those looking to improve their gameplay and build their farms and neighb ...more
In this video we learn how to crack WPA using Back Track. The first step is the boot into Back Track using a VMware Virtual Machine Image. Next you need to open a shell console. In the console you will type "airmon-ng" and press enter. This does a check to find the wireless gu ...more
There are 10 major ways to protect your PC. Disable Autorun, in Windows. Make sure that your system is up to date, by setting automatic updates. Always use a log on for your computer that does not have administrative privileges. Use different passwords, and change your passwor ...more
"Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, to share links, to share photos and videos of themselves and their friends, and to learn more about the people they mee ...more
We've talked about the deep web before, but we never really covered the details of what's out there. It occurred to me that a nice list of resources would be very helpful to all of you anons out there. Think of this like a helpful brochure to the hidden web. However, I should ...more
In the 3rd episode of thebroken Kevin and Dan show how to mod the original XBOX, the PS2, and the Gamecube. But the show kicks off with a couple 40z and some easy tips on how to crack windows passwords. Ramzi busts out with his best hacker tip yet, a self-destructing laptop! a ...more
Last Friday's mission was to accomplish solving HackThisSite, Realistic 5, the fifth and last in my series of realistic hacking simulation missions. This time, telemarketers are invading people's privacy, and it was up to us to stop them! The job was to get root on the site an ...more
Leaving your wireless router at its default settings is a bad idea. The sad thing is, most people still do it. Once they've penetrated your network, hackers will change your router settings so they'll have an easy way back in. This allows them to change your network into a she ...more
Your BIOS, or Basic Input Output System, is the firmware on your motherboard responsible for initializing your computer's hardware when it is first powered on. It probes for video adapters, RAM, the whole works. The BIOS provides a small library of basic input/output functions ...more
Welcome to part two in a series about steganography, the art of hiding things in plain sight. We are practicing steganography because it can be a useful skill if you don't have access to encryption software, or need a quick solution to make sure the sender and recipient are th ...more
So, you scratched up your $500 Adobe CD and now it's unreadable. You could go buy a new one, but you already purchased it! Searching The Pirate Bay and downloading some Adobe software can usually be easy enough, but what should you watch out for? And what about your movies? W ...more
We're officially seeking Null Byters on a weekly basis who would enjoy taking their time to educate the community. Contributors will write tutorials, which will be featured on the Null Byte blog, as well as the front page of WonderHowTo (if up to par, of course). This is a job ...more
Null Byte is looking for forum moderators! Welcome to the ninth Community Byte for coding in Python and completing the challenges presented to us by HackThisSite. These sessions are created to bring our community together, to learn from each other, and grow together. Everyone ...more
If you follow the Anonymous, Occupy, and IT security scenes, you have no doubt heard about a dox release. What is it? How can it hurt you? And most importantly, how can you protect yourself from it? Some of these steps might seem common sense, while others will be an ah-ha! mo ...more
Social engineering is described as the clever manipulation of the natural tendency of human trust. All of the passwords, locks, and encryption in the entire world are useless against a good social engineer who can charm or trick you into giving it up. But what once started as ...more
In the first part of this series, we learned about darknets, as well as how they came about. But these patches of forgotten Internet are not the oasis of free information you might think. Despite being hidden—or just harder to come across—these networks are no more safe then a ...more
Most Minecraft player would agree that if the game is missing anything, it's Zombies. Thankfully, there's a mod for that. Download WinRar and the ZombieCraft mod and follow the instructions given in this Minecraft mod install guide to zombi ...more
Hi there again, aspiring hackers (and veterans as well)! I'm going to explain how to perform a dictionary attack on a WPA/WPA2 protected network with Wifite. Please note that this doesn't work with WPA Enterprise For that end, you'd have to use an Evil Twin to get the "Enterpr ...more
Sometimes you need a password to gain access to an older running Windows system. Maybe it's a machine in your basement you forgot about or a locked machine that belonged to a disgruntled employee. Maybe you just want to try out your pentesting skills. When you need to access ...more
Welcome back, my rookie hackers! As hackers, we are often faced with the hurdle of cryptography and encryption. In some cases, we use it to hide our actions and messages. Many applications and protocols use encryption to maintain confidentiality and integrity of data. To be a ...more
Brute-forcing is an easy way of discovering weak login credentials and is often one of the first steps when a hacker finds network services running on a network they gain access to. For beginners and experienced hackers alike, it's useful to have access to the right tools to d ...more
Every summer for the last 26 years, hoards of hackers have descended on the Las Vegas Strip for DEFCON, the biggest hacker conference in the US. There's a wealth of talks every season (DEFCON 27 has at least 95 scheduled), and there have been some essential topics to learn fro ...more
Wi-Fi tools keep getting more and more accessible to beginners, and the LAZY script is a framework of serious penetration tools that can be explored easily from within it. This powerful and simple tool can be used for everything from installing new add-ons to grabbing a WPA ha ...more