What are the 4 steps involved in a hacker attack?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

There are generally four steps involved in a hacker attack: (1) information gathering;
(2) initial access; (3) privilege escalation; and (4) creating back doors and covering tracks.
In order to break into a system, hackers first need to gather information. Information gathering
involves “footprinting,” where the hacker tries to gain as much information about the target and
existing computer security, oftentimes scanning the computer system for ways to access it, and
probing the system (called enumeration) to see if user accounts and network resources are not
well protected. Following information gathering, the threat then usually performs an initial
access which can involve the installation of malicious codes to gain entry into a system. Once in
the system, unauthorized users can expand their privilege or access to other information (called
root compromise), oftentimes using malicious codes again to achieve their criminal purposes. In
the last stage, the hackers create back doors so they can readily gain access to the system again.
One common back door technique includes creating a user account so hackers can readily re-
access the system. In order to ensure not being detected, hackers also need to “cover their
tracks” from being detected by system administrators. This can be accomplished by deleting or
modifying logs, and disguising the malicious code.