Re: Programming SKills for PT...?

[George Huber <kharmon () optonline net>]

Swaminathan, Balaji wrote:
>    In my opinion, though all the open source exploits, tools are
> available, you cannot call urself as an hacker atleast an ethical hacker
> unless you try to figure out them on your own. So pls let me know:
>
> 1. What are the programming/scripting languages needed to accompolish
> the above?
> 2. I see most of the real hackers are well proficient in almost all of
> the the technologies like Networking, Application/WebApplcn testing, OS
> etc. Is it so...?
> 3. Are there any other skills/requirements that you can suggest to be a
> successful Hacker?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
>   
Hi,

Here are my thoughts on this.

Hacking, at least with the original definition of the word, is really 
the ability to find new and novel solutions to difficult problems.  This 
is done by a very deep and though knowledge of the subject field. 

Now, hacking (or ethical hacking)  is really the same thing -- using a 
deep understanding of a system to make it do strange and interesting 
things.  So in my opinion you will need a deep understanding of 
operating systems, networking and networking protocols.

If you are aspiring to be more then a "script-kiddie", and write your 
own exploits, you will need to understand assembly language -- remember 
the shell code is nothing more then assembly.  Moving away from 
assembly, while scripting languages might be nice for automation 
purposes -- from what I've seen the serious exploits (as well as 
applications) are still done in C or C++. 

With this I would strongly recommend that you start with C...learn it 
well, inside and out (and my your own admission, this might be difficult 
for you).  

Try to understand how things work, and more importantly why they work 
that way.  Look for assumptions that might be made about something -- be 
it a protocol, program or system -- and see what happens if you remove 
one of those assumptions or you break one of them.



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