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+---
+title: Getting Hands Dirty with Hacking
+date: 2022-11-03
+publish: true
+tags: []
+---
+
+# Intro & Motivation
+
+For a a while now I have been thinking about writing this. Earlier I've written
+about [getting into
+Cybersecurity](https://medium.com/@gabrielschneider100/going-to-cybersecurity-as-a-software-engineer-intern-d416881ab2a2),
+I was about a month into my internship and it was much more about my reaction
+to: "You're going to Security now, good luck young one".
+
+Now I'm five months in, and many things have changed. I'm still here (literally
+here, I work from home), I'm still an intern, but still, things are very
+different.
+
+So, I'm writing this here because there were many times where I had to stop,
+grab a piece of paper and just dump the new things that were clouding my head.
+I still wrote almost daily markdown notes on the new things  that I was
+learning, but still, it's different, sometimes all I need is a blank piece of
+paper and a nice pen. The same way I write a lot to myself, it's not enough,
+from time to time I feel the need to share what I've learned, so this is it.
+
+
+## Processes & Techniques
+
+In the start I was: "I want to get really good at hacking, so I'm going to
+learn new techniques and get really good at them, SQL Injection, XSS, wait for
+me I'm coming after you!". And while there's value to that, by itself,
+practicing those techniques wasn't really going to help me that much. I was
+trying to turn into a good fighter just by repeatedly punching a punch bag,
+it's not going to work just by itself, I'm going to get my ass kicked this way.
+
+
+The thing that was missing in my approach was actually deeper than I expected,
+to be a hacker you have to think like one. For a very long time my mind was set
+on building things and solving problems, I wanted to make robots, games, and
+explore maths; that was basically it. Software Engineering was a straight path
+ahead, it's different, but at the end it's just building things and solving
+problems. That's not the case with Hacking, at all.
+
+
+To think like a hacker honestly is like listening to your inner devil. When you
+come across something, you want to take advantage of it, I want to learn about
+it until you know enough to break it. It took a while, but I can feel the
+effects of my _self corruption_, this inner evil voice is already talking _all
+the fucking time_ in my head. 
+
+On the Internet you see hackers doing stuff with Software and then doing
+crazier stuff with Hardware, it didn't made much sense to me how those people
+could change domains like that, now it does. It's like coding in Clojure and
+then going to embedded C, the mindset is _basically_ the same, it's the
+enviroment and the tools for it that changed.
+
+
+## My first Big Project
+
+
+When I started to notice a big improvement in my _Dark Arts_ fighting
+techniques was when I stopped to think about my thought process and it write
+down. A month ago I was faced with: "You have 4-5 weeks to test those websites
+and write a report, good luck pal". I work in a _great_ team, but I felt like
+they had put way too much faith in me at the time. For the first week I was
+just testing with the techniques that I had learned, I was much better at those
+than I was before, but still.
+
+I had _one_ good finding and that was it. I had a motivation rush after finding
+it, but soon it started to feel like I was trying to climb a huge wall with my
+bare hands. It as then that I stopped, grabbed a piece of paper, a nice pen,
+did some research about the _pentesting process_, read some checklists and
+started building my own. The thought process was forming in my head from
+working with my peers, from the things that I was learning from the internet,
+my head was getting cloudy with it. Writing it down was like making those
+clouds rain, condensating them to water and clearing up my mind.
+
+The project is done now and it was a great success. This kind of _"process
+organization"_ was very important to it's success.
+
+![](https://www.myinstants.com/media/instants_images/boratgs.jpg)
+
+
+## Things I've learned
+
+So, Gabriel, you say; what do you have to show to us? You climbed that wall,
+wrote some shit in some stone slabs, now share it with us!
+
+So... I say; beware of the golden calfs out there in Security, there are many!
+
+The first things that I liked is that **it feels like war**. There are clearly
+two sides: We (usually a small team or single person) vs them (A company or a
+specific product). Some of the processes we use for hacking are actually used
+by military intelligence. Lo and behold these are my commandments:
+
+
+---
+
+The fist commandment is: **Information is Key**.
+
+Let's say there's a Pizza shop which has their own delivery service. They hired
+us to test its security. The first thing is that we need to do is to gather
+information about it. 
+
+- How does it work?
+- Which features does it have?
+- Can I order Pizza to my neighbour?
+- Do they check if I'm the person I'm claiming to be?
+
+And then you discover: Oh, if the delivery takes more than 30 minutes the pizza
+is free. What happens if I order pizza from somewhere far away? Will  they
+deliever to me? What if it's not that far away, but I keep making changes to
+the order so it takes longer?
+
+You can also find hidden things this way, i.e. They have lower prices if it's
+your birthday, but they only change the price if you ask for it, they keep this
+promotion hidden for some reason. Can I fake my ID to always get lower prices?
+
+
+> You need to understand how it's supposed to work, its features and
+> functionalities. So you know what to break and exploit.
+
+---
+
+The second commandment is: **Organization is Key**
+
+
+We'll gather a lot of information, it will be needed for writing a report to
+our Pizza shop client, to our attacks, and to share it with our team.
+
+Also, for every domain that we are working there will be lots and lots of
+information about the specific tools and processes for it. Better organization
+means more efficient tests, the next time you do them, because information is
+accessible and searchable. My setup is described
+[here](https://gbrls.github.io/blog/current-organizational-structure/).
+
+Organization is also important to keep track of the tests you've done, the time
+you did them, and which tests are still left to do.
+
+---
+
+The third commandment is: **Know your domain**
+
+
+Pizza Delivery Services is a very specific domain. Knowing well your domain
+will greatly improve your chances of success in an attack. Think how having
+worked on the phone in a Pizza Delivery Service would help you exploit another
+Pizza delivery companies.
+
+---
+
+The forth commandment is: **Attack fast and with precision**
+
+
+Many times you'll need to execute an attack as a proof of concept. The attack
+should be well planned, precise and fast.
+
+
+Most of the time you'll need to take care to not cause disruption to the
+regular services. 
+
+You'll need to be fast to not give enough time for them to
+react to it.
+
+
+You'll need to be **very** careful with [PII](https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/learning/privacy/what-is-pii/).
+
+---
+
+# Conclusion
+
+Those commandments are maturing, I'm still very new at this and different
+people have different styles. Despite those things, I hope they are helpful.
+
+Security is very big and exciting. Have fun and take care.
+
+
+# References
+
+- [The Web Application Hacker's Handbook](https://www.amazon.com.br/Web-Application-Hackers-Handbook-Exploiting/dp/1118026470)