Ethical Hacking with Python

A computer science engineer, a part of encrypting the world, must know the basics of hacking. Hacking is the process of getting access to a system of which we are not supposed to have.

Such as login in to the email account without authorization is a part of hacking that account. Getting access to the computer or mobile phone without authorization is hacking. There is a large number of ways the user can hack into the system, and the basic concept of hacking is the same, breaking into the system without any authentication.

Ethical Hacking

Ethical hacking is not limited to cracking passwords or stealing data. Ethical hacking is used for scanning vulnerabilities and for finding potential threats on the computer system or networks. Ethical hackers find the weak points or loopholes in the system, applications, or networks and report them to the organization.

There are different types of hackers, following are some:

1. Black Hat Hackers
   The Black Hat Hackers are the people who entered inside the website unethically for stealing data from the admin portal or to manipulate the data. They basically do this for their profit or to take advantage of personal data. Their main purpose is to cause major damage to the company, and this can even lead to dangerous consequences.
2. White Hat Hacker
   The White hat hackers are a type of hacker work for finding bugs and report them ethically to the organizations or firms. They are authorized as the user for testing and checking bugs in the networks or websites and report back to the developers or authorized people. The white-hat hacker usually gets all the required information about the website or network system they are testing from the firm itself. They hack the system with authorization. They do this so that they can save the website from malicious hackers in the future.
3. Grey Hat Hackers
   These types of hackers get access to the data of the website or network and violate cyber law. But they don't have the same intentions as the Black Hat Hackers do. They hack the system for the common good, but they as different from white hat hackers, as they exploit vulnerability publicly, and the white hat hackers do it privately for the firm or organization.

Why should a user consider using Python programming for hacking?

1. Ease of Use and Readability:

• Simple Syntax: Python's syntax is straightforward and easy to learn, allowing hackers to quickly write and understand code, even when working on complex tasks.
• Rapid Development: Python's simplicity allows for rapid prototyping and testing of ideas, which is essential in hacking where time is often a critical factor.

2. Extensive Libraries:

• Pre-built Tools: Python has a vast standard library and many third-party modules that support tasks like network scanning, web scraping, packet crafting, and more. Libraries like Scapy, Socket, Requests, Paramiko, and BeautifulSoup are commonly used in hacking.
• Automation: Python's libraries allow hackers to automate repetitive tasks, such as scanning networks, brute-forcing passwords, or crawling websites.

3. Cross-Platform Compatibility:

• Runs Anywhere: Python is cross-platform, meaning that scripts written in Python can run on different operating systems (Windows, Linux, macOS) without modification. This flexibility is useful in hacking, where the target environment can vary.

4. Integration Capabilities:

• Interoperability: Python can easily integrate with other programming languages like C, C++, and Java, as well as with various systems and protocols. This makes it a versatile choice for hacking, where you might need to interact with different technologies.

5. Community and Support:

• Active Community: Python has a large and active community, including forums and resources specifically focused on cybersecurity and hacking. This means you can find a wealth of knowledge, tutorials, and tools readily available.
• Open-Source Tools: Many open-source hacking tools are written in Python, making it easier to customize and extend these tools for specific tasks.

How Passwords are Hacked?

As we know that the passwords of websites or files are not stored in the form of plain text in the database of websites. In this tutorial, we are going to hack the plain text, which is secured by a password. In the plain text, the passwords are stored in the hashed (md5) format.

So, the user has to take the input_hashed(which is the hashed password stored in the database), and then they have to try to compare it with the hashed(md5) of each plain text password which can be found in the password file.

When the match of the hashed password is found, the user can display the plain text password, which is stored in the file of passwords. But if the password is not found in the file of input passwords, then it will display that "Password is not found", this happens only when the buffer overflow does occur.

These types of hacking attacks are considered "Dictionary Attacks".

Example:

Input 1:

Output:

 Password found. The required password is: manchester123 # # # # # # Thank you # # # # # # 

Input 2:

Output:

 Password found. The required password is: heartbreaker07 # # # # # # Thank you # # # # # # 

Input 3:

# # # # # # Password Hacking # # # # # #

Please enter the hashed password: 33816712db4f3913ee967469fe7ee982

Please enter the passwords file name including its path (root / home/): passwords.txt

Output:

The password is not found in the passwords.txt file.

Explanation:

In the above code, the we first imported the "hashlib" module as it contains various methods which can handle hashing any raw message in the encrypted method. Then the user has to input the hashed password and the location of the passwords text file. Then, the user is trying to open the text file, but if the text file is not found at the mentioned location, it will print the error of "File not found".

Then, we compare the input hashed password with the hashed words present in the text file to find the correct password; for that, we have to encode the words into the utf-8 format and then hash the words into md5 hash. Then digest the hashed word into hexadecimal values.

If the digested value is equal to the input hash password, it will print the password found and print the correct password value. But if the password is not found, that means the digested value does not match with the input hash password. It will print "Password is not found".

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have discussed ethical hacking in Python, and we have also shown an example of how to hack a password.