Stages Of Ethical Hacking

The below steps explain the different stages of hacking.

Stage 1 - Reconnaissance: It is the act of gathering information related to intelligence and preliminary data of your target to plan for attack in a better way. It can be carried out either actively or passively(Network, IP address, DNS records). Hacker will be spending his most of time in this stage.

Stage 2 - Scanning: It is a prior stage to launching the attack. At this stage we scan for open ports, services etc. The tools collectively used by the hacker during the scanning would be port scanners, sweepers, dialers, and vulnerability scanners.

Stage 3 - Gaining Access: The blueprint of network of the targeted system will be ready from stages 1 & 2. At this stage we gain access for the targeted system by accessing one/more network devices to extract the data from target.

Stage 4 - Maintain Access: At this stage, the hacker will be in stealth mode to avoid getting caught while working in host environment. Once the hacker gains access, he lays path for future attacks and exploitations by making the target hardened. Hacker also secures the path by any other bypass accessing with rootkits, backdoors and trojans.

Stage 5 - Covering Tracks: At this stage the hacker covers his track in order to get caught & detected by cyber personnel. Removes evidence of hacking, to avoid legal actions. Hacker removes all log files, IDS(tunneling protocols, steganography, alter log files).