Defence Against The Dark Arts and Where Is Hogwarts ??
Preface
The main purpose of this article is to provide an introduction to web security training for the persons who have an enthusiasm for the field. This article will give a brief introduction about the importance of the web security. Then I will introduce a hacker training web site name “HackThisSite” to learn techniques that can be used to increase the web security knowledge. This article will also act as an introductory article for a series of articles which will act as tutorials for the tasks given by the HackThisSite web site.
Why Web Security Is Important ?
A huge percentage of the world’s population is connected to the Internet every single day. Different people make use of the Internet for a variety of reasons. This may vary to business communication, research, e-commerce, and even marketing. Through the Internet, thousands of people are virtually connected and are kept informed through the different websites they visit. However, as technology advances, several threats happened causing problems not only to website visitors but to website owners as well. Due to this modern web security plays a vital role in modern web.
Web security breaches have been an issue for years now. These attacks can cause great damage as they can spread virus, corrupt and destroy the website, and steal personal information. As websites contain valuable information, especially those websites that involves paying through credit cards, web developers have to keep their websites secured at all times.
Here are few main reasons why modern web developers should consider to learn about web security.
- Web attackers can steal sensitive information from websites. This will be a huge blow to the client relationships. Clients lose their trust if their information is hacked. Losing clients’ trust is a great blow to your business. Most recent example for this kind of scenario is the Equifax data breach. Due to this security breach, now this incident is considered as the worst data breach in the history.
- Identity theft. Hackers may use personal details or clients’ personal information to do malicious activities online. The level of threat increases if the attackers can do this for a long period of time without getting noticed.
- Web attacks can crash websites. Once a website is not working, an organization will be losing customers every single minute that passes. For business websites, sales per day will be greatly affected. The return of investment is sure to decrease and it might take some time before the company totally recover all the data lost because of the poor security features on the website.
But the irony in this field is that to provide a better security for website, the developer must also have a sound knowledge about “Hacking” or ways to break the security features of the website.
Better the knowledge about hacking ,tighter the security of the website
So how can an enthusiast can develop his/her skillset to be a better hacker? The answer for that lies between many aspects such as opportunity to learn security threats, opportunities to practice methods to handle security threats, good mentoring programmes etc. So as a fellow security enthusiast I can recommend HackThisSite web site will provide all those features in a sound manner. I will provide a link to the website at the end of this article.
What Is HackThisSite ?
HackThisSite is an online hacking and security website. It will provide a free, safe and legal training ground to sharpen the hacking skills for any web security enthusiast. It was founded by Jeremy Hammond who is also a famous hacker. HackThisSite website has many features to provide its’ above defined purpose in a graspable manner.
HackThisSite; Hogwarts To The World Of Hacking..!
HackThisSite website has many features to provide its’ above-defined purpose in an interesting manner. Following is a list features and services that it will provide for its users.
- Challenges.
- Get Informed.
- Get Involved.
- Communication.
- About HackThisSite
Out of the above tabs, I will discuss Challenges feature prominently and others briefly. If you are interested in learning more about the site go to the link that I will provide at the bottom of the page.
Infamous HackThisSite Challenges Series ..!
As I have told earlier, HackThisSite(HTS) will provide a way to learn about hacking in a graspable manner. The developers of this site have identified that giving challenges replicating the real life scenarios is the best way to learn. So based on that philosophy they have developed several series of tasks that will act as training scenarios for the users. The missions works on a system of points where users are awarded scores based on their completion of missions. In general, the missions become steadily more difficult as the user advances through a particular mission category. There are several types of challenges and missions such as:
- Basic Missions
- Realistic Missions
- Programming Missions
- JavaScript Missions
Each of these series contain number of tasks which needs to be done. If you are a new to the website and has a minor knowledge about web security, I highly recommend to complete the Basic Mission challenges first and then the Realistic Mission series. In the following sections of the article I will focus more on those missions.
Basic and Realistic Missions
The Basic Missions contain eleven Basic Web Challenges. Each challenge consists of an authentication page with a password entry box. They may also include other files which are to be exploited or attacked in order to gain the correct password. Successful authentication to the main challenge page will advance the user to the next challenge. These challenges are typically considered simple and are used as an introduction to hacking.
There are sixteen Realistic Missions which attempt to mimic real, moderate to difficult hacking, in real life situations. Each mission is a complete website featuring multiple pages and scripts. Users must successfully exploit one or more of the websites pages to gain access to required data or to produce changes.
I will provide an article to capture the knowledge that needs to complete the Basic Missions and I will provide a series of articles which will act as walk through guides for the realistic missions. The links will be provided at the end of this article.
Summary
When it comes to word hacking, the society has a gloomy view. But my opinion is that every web developer must have a sound knowledge about web security and the techniques used in that fields. Because hacking activities can be used in ethical ways for a better and a secure world. So I believe HackThisSite training ground is a good place to master the hacking skills to provide security for the web threats and to develop a skill set to be an ethical hacker.
Link to HackThisSite
Link To Basic Mission article
The Realistic Mission articles will be provided one by one. So stay tuned..!
