#1 – Hacking Tutorial: Tech Tips and Hacking Tricks
Sometimes, perfect English isn’t everything. Hacking Tutorial is an example of when the writing skill of the author doesn’t necessarily equate to the quality of his or her technical knowledge. This is actually the case over at Hacking Tutorial, where the author offers articles like “Client Side Attack Using Adobe PDF Escape EXE Social Engineering”, “Exploiting MS11_003 Internet Explorer Vulnerability”, and “Hacking Using BeeF XSS Framework”.
The articles are usually short, but actually offer highly technical, step-by-step instructions on how to do the task at hand, and the tricks and tweets absolutely work, unless the exploit has been patched. It’s a small blog, but it’s a good one for the volume of technical tricks that you’ll find there.
#2 – EvilZone Hacking Forums
While the name, EvilZone, isn’t exactly the most inviting – it is easily one of the largest forum communities that you’ll find on the subject of hacking. With over 13,042 members and over 50,000 posts (and counting), this community likely has the skills and knowledge to answer any programming question you could possibly have. Just be careful about coming across as a “noob” – these guys don’t handle newcomers with kid gloves, so be careful.
You’d definitely be best off working through the programming and encyclopedia sections first, where you’ll find areas with projects, tutorials and a lot more that will help you become educated and well-versed in hacking techniques and terminology.
#3 – Hack a Day
While I certainly don’t want to offer a nod to any blogs that may be considered competition, you really have to give credit where credit is due when it comes to a particular niche like hacking – and Hack a Day definitely offers an amazing library of information for anyone looking for specific categories like cellphones, GPS or digital cameras. Over the years, Hack A Day has transformed the site into a fairly popular blog.
More than any other site, this particular “hacking” site is very much hardware based, and they redefine the meaning of the word hacking by helping you learn how to hack up electronic devices like a Gameboy or a digital camera and completely modifying it, or building electronics for the sole purpose of hacking other commercial devices. You’ll also find a popular and busy forum section as well – a high point of the site.
While I personally don’t find the articles themselves very detailed (as an EE, I like schematics and elaborate descriptions), the site makes up for it with video demonstrations throughout.
#4 – Hack In The Box
Hack In The Box has really change significantly through the years. It is rebranded as HITB, and the site is completely transformed into what looks like a WordPressed-based platform. Still, today Hack In The Box remains focused on security and ethical hacking. However, it has obviously shifted gears at some point and changed to a more content-focused approach with a greater volume of news, and fewer in-depth articles with detailed hacks.
This transition makes it less of a place to go for actually technical hacking tips, and more of a daily spot to get your latest fix of hacking news. The site is updated frequently, and of course you can also go for the print version of the HITB-branded magazine if you want.
Clearly, HITB has gone very commercialized, but it is a great resource for news for anyone interested in the latest gossip throughout the hacking community.
#5 – Hack This Site!
As always, saving the best for last – I’d like to introduce Hack This Site! This website is one of the coolest, free programmer training sites where you can learn how to hack accepting one of the challenges along the left navigation pane of the main page.
The site designers offer various “missions,” where you need to figure out the vulnerability of a site and then attempt to use your new-found hacking skills (you’ve carefully studied all of the articles on the site, right?) to hack the web page. Missions include Basic, Realistic, Application, Programming and many others.
If you’re able to figure out how to properly hack any of the most difficult missions on this site, then you’ve definitely earned the title of professional hacker.
Have you ever tried any of the tips offered at any of these websites and do they work? Do you have any good resources of your own for readers to learn how to hack like the pros? Share your insight in the comments section below.