How to become a hacker?

[Lear]

I am a pretty tech savvy person, and I was thinking about getting into hacking. What should I learn to get into it? From what I've heard; networking, MySQL, Linux, Kali (linux), Unix, Perl, PHP, Python, Java, HTML, Wireshark, C#, C++. Am I missing anything? Where should I start? Thanks in advance. 

[Teabot 5000]

I'd say start off with some Web app exploitation, so SQLI, XSS, CSRF, file upload vulnerabilities, etc. That stuff helps get you in the mindset for looking at other areas like network security and binary exploitation.

 

That said, if you don't have any programming skills I'd recommend starting with that. Learn HTML, javascript, PHP, maybe C or Java, and Python. After that understanding some networking basics would go a long way too.

[IDNeon]

One of the biggest hacks in the world was China breaking into Top Secret clearance level Pentagon networks by opening a Chinese Restaurant (literally) down the street and waiting for a couple years for its popularity and familiarity to grow enough until take-out menus got common enough in the Pentagon that finally, someone with Top Secret Clearance was dumb enough to order Chinese food through the provided website from within the network he was working on.  This is of course....OLD news.  I doubt such a method would work on the Pentagon anymore.  (There's also an equally valid story about the Chinese leaving flash drives around park benches near the Pentagon in hopes someone would think "ooh...a free memory stick" and gain access through those.)

But the moral of the story.

Hacking has NOTHING to do with what Teabot 5000 told you.  And it bothers me, pesters me to NO END, that that's what people think Hacking is.

Hacking, is rather, "Security", and it's the business of making systems secure from people who use any method but a lot of them include programming, networking, knowledge of how to use tools.

But let's face it, just because someone gives you a tiny hammer doesn't mean you're going to know how to make a piano.

And unless you learn how to make a piano, that tiny hammer isn't going to do anything for you.  Maybe you'll succeed at pentesting, I hear there's a large need of people to go around and perform tasks like monkeys so businesses can claim they are secure and write down their insurance premiums and call in their experts to say they have no legal liability when they get hacked because they "complied with the common standard".  I suppose if you get good with wireshark, you can go do that.

But if you would prefer real security analysis and discussion of hacking, hit me up.

*PS*  The above two stories, both revelations led to changes in behavioral systems at the institution (in this case the Pentagon).  For instance now you are no longer allowed to carry in flash drives to the pentagon but rather have to use specifically issued ones for work only that don't leave, that kind of thing.

Hacking is about seeing systems, and breaking them, that's it. Doesn't matter if it means launching some cool attack through 5 institutional hops, if you can just walk through the door and literally walk out with the data.

*By the way that's what Snowden actually did do.  Regardless of the cool myths about how he did it, he downloaded what he had access to, and walked out the door.  And now he's regarded a genius hacker.  Though he really was very technically skilled anyway.  He's little more than a thief who walked off with someone's shirt.  And that's why he's the genius.  Because he saw that flaw and took it.*

Edited February 21, 2017 by IDNeon