I broke down and read Hacking for Dummies. It was a surprisingly good read. To be a hacker, you need to think like a thief. This is the hacker mentality? Hacking is like testing software. You can go further than a tester by broadcasting your findings to the world. This makes you a Hacktivist.Put up a fake contest web site. Then promote it. Ask users to create an account on the web site. You can collect a lot of good passwords that way. It is a good practice to disable broadcasting of your SSID on a wireless network. Did you know that passive monitoring can find your access point even if you are not broadcasting the SSID?
When you conduct tests for port scanning, you should scan the first 65535 ports on the computer. This might produce false positives for holes. Note also that the port scan itself might cause a Denial of Service. Be sure to test your firewall from both inside and outside your network. You never know when an attack is going to come from within.
Here are some methods to prevent Denial of Service attacks. Apply patches, including patches to firmware. Set up your router to block malformed traffic. Block ICMP and disable SNMP. Do not put sensitive information on your web servers. That way hackers can’t get your info even if they compromise your network.
