What Is Hacking?
Hacking is a skill that can be used for good or bad. Despite the negative portrayals in popular culture, hackers are people with skills who like to overcome limitations and solve problems. They use their knowledge to find security flaws in systems, networks and computing devices. Ethical hackers use these weaknesses to test cybersecurity defenses for companies and advise them where they need to improve to prevent threats from malicious actors.
Malicious hackers can steal passwords, financial information and other sensitive data. They can also spread malware, such as a key logger that records every keystroke and sends it to the hacker; or a virus that infects a computer and then encrypts all of its files. They can even take over computers to launch attacks such as denial-of-service attacks, by deploying zombie computers that flood websites with data requests.
When the term Hacking first appeared in print in 1980, it referred to an individual who increased the efficiency of computer code by removing — or hacking — unnecessary machine-code instructions. Later, when personal computers became widely available to the public, the term was applied to anyone who tinkered with software or hardware, especially by using a variety of methods that broke system security.
In the early 1970s, a group of teenagers obsessively explored low-tech ways to get around secure telecommunication networks and expensive long-distance phone charges. They were called phreaks, and their explorations led to the development of hacking as we now know it.