HACKING-ITS EFFECTS ON SOCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL LIVES OF SOCIETY

Submitted to Miss Arjumand Bilal.

Foundation University Institute of engineering and management sciences

Abstract:
This research encompasses the basics knowledge of hacking and also discusses the impact of hacking practice on the social and professional lives of individuals and organizations. This paper hypothesizes that can negativity of hackers be changed into positivity. The generations of hackers since the birth of computing and their impact upon the society is focused.

Dedicated to our beloved parents, without their care and understanding we could not complete this task.

Table of contents 1. Chapter 1: Introduction a. General Introduction. i. What is hacking ii. Who is hacker iii. Generations of hackers iv. Motivations behind hacking b. Hypothesis c. Significance of Study d. Delimitation e. Population f. sampling 2. Chapter 2: Literature Review a. References i. Reference 1 ii. Reference 2 iii. Reference 3 b. Literature review 3. Chapter 3: Methodology a. Tools of data collections b. Method of data collection. 4. Chapter 4: Data Collection & Analysis a. Questionnaires And statistical Analysis 5. Chapter 5: Conclusion a. Conclusion b. Recommendations and suggestions

Hacking-Its Effects On Social And Professional Lives Of Society

Hacking in the past has been and still the disease the society suffers from. It is an infection that is spreading throughout the society and spoiling the personal and professional lives of many individuals and organizations. It is an ever spreading virus in the human society which has always outrun the tries of people who work tirelessly and spend billions of dollars to prevent hacking attacks. More sophisticated hacking attacks are invented to breach through the preventive actions taken by the people who want to stop this menace.

What is hacking?
Hacking is not limited to accessing data or information but also includes an attack on the privacy of all people. Hacker Breaches through the security mechanism, collects personalized information and data for his personal interest or interest of people who hire his services.

Unauthorized use or attempts to circumvent or bypass the security mechanisms of an information system or network.

Who is the hacker?

Seems hackers are experts and professional people who were behind the technology we are enjoying at the moment but at no time and suddenly they began to think about their interests and benefits and what they can achieve from what they invented. Many hackers hack because they believe information must be visible to every person, there must be no concept of information owning. For this reason classified information or personal information is kept hidden. Hacker is part of the society, a computer professional who wants to use technology for his own benefit. A person who enjoys accessing files whether for fun, imposing power or the interest related to the accessed files or data for himself or people who hire him. Some researchers believe Information should be shared but with mentioning who is the owner and with the permission of doing that because knowledge should be spread away and not to be limited or restricted and hacking is not the proper way of doing this. Some researchers believe Life history of hackers into three generations: The first generation: First generation was made of experts of computer programming who never stopped improving their skills then misuse them, The second generation: Second generation was made of computer hardware developers who found hacking and accessing data and information for free as an appealing idea while The third generation: The third generation included developers of games architecture, also includes any person who has a computer and some knowledge of programming.

Motivations behind hacking:

The motivations behind hacking are an issue that is discussed heavily due to the importance of understanding the hacker s psychology and the fuel that encourages him/her to perform such illegal activities. Hackers view about what they are doing is far different from our views as victims. Sometimes hacking is motivated by the desire of imposing power and improving knowledge, searching for convenience rather than making money. It s a matter of self convenience and satisfaction so that s why motivations differ from one hacker to another but they all share the feel of addiction, curiosity and the need to impose their power. that hacker thoughts were the main motivator, the thoughts focus on the freedom of information which means that information should be easily accessed by all people at any time, but since regulations and security tools limited accessibility and began to interfere with the freedom of information, hackers help people to return back their right of instant access of any source of information. Hackers do believe that knowledge and information should be shared and there is no need for information owning because accessing information is one of the basic rights people should have. Information sharing is and was the reason behind the failure and bankruptcy of many companies that were the target of many hacking attacks in the name of information sharing and defending the community rights. can we ever bridge the gap between hacking society and normal society by psychological lectures that are introduced? Effects on Society Hacking effects can be categorized into three types; effects on individuals, organizations, economy and effects on countries. The most important issue to recognize is that victims are the only ones who feel the threat and effects of hacking attacks, and our duty is to inform other people about the danger of hacking to be cautious and alert which helps in preventing hacking attacks from happening . 1. Effects on individuals: There are cases where individual information is sold and used for bad purposes like using their accounts. While Seo (2001) focuses on the psychology of individuals after being hacked and that they will always have the fear of being monitored when accessing internet and information, added to that the privacy of users can be easily penetrated. Credit card details and passwords can be stolen causing financial damage to individuals added to that computer systems can be hacked causing the machine to stop working as usual or stealing your data. 2. Effects on organizations and economy: Hacking is said to have cost the global economy an estimated $1.2 Billion Niccolai (2000). Hacking caused and still causing till the moment bankruptcy to plenty of companies, that s because companies are being hacked plenty of times which leads to the loss of customer confidence or belief in the security capabilities

of the company. Companies are a main target for hackers who break into their systems to steal trade information or customer s payment details. The company server will be broken due to huge traffic causing customer frustration and hurt the company reputation. Same for software theft that causes bankruptcy to companies which spend millions to develop and create software that sadly later on is stolen and copied for cheap prices. The main problem is that some companies hire or use hackers to break into other competitor systems to steal precious information Randall et al. (2000). Thomas and Loader (2000) discuss the effect of hacking on E-commerce. Web sites for online selling are being hacked for the sake of getting customer and company information which then used for nefarious purposes. 3. Effects on countries: since we are living in information society where all our daily activities are controlled by technology, there will be a great damage if a vital system was broken by hacking attacks. Breaking main system might result in collapse of countries Banks (1997). Ninemsn ( 2004) shows that north Korea is training 600 hackers to begin cyber attacks against United States, Japan and south Korea to gather military intelligence. This kind of attacks to computer systems aim to steal vital information of countries decisions regarding foreign policies and strategies, this results in causing countries to reconsider their policies that were taken after long analysis, it might also cause disturbance due to the attack of precious and top secret information. CNET (2001) states that FBI agents downloaded data from two Russian-based computers. The hacking was done to help their investigation and track information on internet crimes and breaking bank networks. This approach caused a lot of controversy and opened the door for other countries to hack different systems and retrieve any source of data using the excuse of tracking criminals which might lead to destroying the principle of information owning and security and then turn the world into a mess and open the door to a new cold war.

Society

response

(solutions)

The war against hacking is a continuous battle that has a starting point with no end at all. The world is using a variety of methods either to halt attacks or minimize their effects on different perspectives. McClure et al. (2003) found that the best way to minimize the effect of attacks or even avoid them is by building a well educated computer user who can gain benefit from different security techniques in the war against hacking. While Randall et al. (2000) believe that the first step to allocate hacking activities should be by applying information security policies, and that s what Pipikin (1997) stated and confirmed that nowadays policies are running in a large number of organizations, these policies imply that all employees should sign a workplace behavior sheet specially the ones dealing with sensitive data and information that must be kept secret. According to those policies any employee who is caught guilty and participating in information theft or hacking will be questioned and further sanctions are applied. Furnell (2002) has a negative opinion and blames policies and restrictions for the limitation of what we can do online. Randall et al. (2000) suggest that companies are making a big mistake by waiting for the attack to happen then when it s too late they reconsider their security techniques. Furnell (2002) suggests that companies are making a big mistake by hiding the attacks on their system and should inform authorities about any incident to help in tracking hackers and intruders.

Regarding security software, different opinions agree that there is no total security and the more sophisticated security tools are invented the more technical hacking attacks are applied, that s because as what Banks (1997) stated that hacking is a big field with no limitations, and hackers are inventing new techniques in a rate faster than security utilities. Server pipeline (2004) states that even with the availability of security tools, it s hard to fill all holes. Furnell (2002) also blames computer users for the inefficiency of security tools, he stated that having a security software is not a solution by itself, users should realize that they need those tools and should learn how and when to use them. Furnell (2002) suggests that hacking will never fade away but it can be managed if precautions are taken, and Randall et al. (2000:499) said that there will never be total security . And till this moment we are suffering from hacking attacks almost on daily basis and the only thing we can do is to minimize their effects and rarely prevent them from happening.

Research Question: Hypothesis under discussion:

Whether the majority of people in the society are positive about practice of hacking?

Majority percentiles of people in the society are negative about the practice of hacking

Significance of study:
This study is very important to spread awareness amongst the society about hacking. This research is done to check how much the society is aware of the aspects of hacking and what views they carry towards the concept of hacking. This paper also describes the impact of hacking practice on the social and professional lives of people and organizations. This paper can help the upcoming researchers who will be working under the umbrella of this topic. With help of this paper they will able to know the general psyche of the society and they will be able to utilize this research for their own study.

Delimitations:
The major limitations our group is facing:  Time limitations. The semester is about to close and this limitation of time is the main reason that is restricting our research work. Giving time to other courses and projects cut shorts the time for research work.  Place Limitations. The research work is conducted in the university; if time and human resources were available it could have been extended to interuniversity level.

Population:
          FAST NUST NUML FOUNDATION UNIVERSITY BAHRIA UNIVERSITY AIR UNIVERSITY MAJU FATIMA JINNAH UNIVERSITY ISLAMIC INTERNATION UNIVERSITY SOCIAL WEBSITES

Sampling:
   Blog oriented websites. Foundation University Institute Of Engineering And Management Sciences. Facebook circle

References:
Account of single instance of hacking on the society.

WASHINGTON The Justice Department said Wednesday it took several steps to disable a network of computers infected by a virus that steals private and financial information from unsuspecting computer users. The Department Said More Than Two Million Computers Have Been Infected With A Malicious Program Called Coreflood, allegedly used by cybercriminals to steal individuals' online banking credentials and passwords.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730104576261503496468030.html FROM IEEE SPECTRUM WEBSITE article named hackig unplug supports the concept and motivation behind hacking it says. Before getting to my main theme, let me clear up a thing or two about the word hacker.

Raymond uses the word in its positive sense of a software or hardware enthusiast who enjoys exploring the limits of code or machine. However, there's a second, equally valid, sense that refers to someone who breaks into or disrupts computer systems or networks. Purists prefer the term cracker for these digital
miscreants and mischief-makers. However, the term "hacker"--which has been in the language since at least the early 1960s--has always had malicious connotations attached to it. http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/hacking-unplugged Hacking, the very word connotes a negative feeling. Hacking basically is the art of penetrating computer systems to gain knowledge. Somebody who utilizes this knowledge is a hacker. Hacking is the art of gaining unauthorized entry to your computer using a software that ties up with the programmers already installed in your computer. http://itvoir.com/portal/boxx/knowledgebase.asp?iid=307&cat=23

Reference:
http://www.echeat.com/essay.php?t=26060

Literature Review:

Hacking is a term defined for any person getting unauthorized access to the data and information of an organization of individuals. The information may be classified of normal personal information. Hackers believe in generalization of information amongst the society, they want information not to be owned by any individual or organization. Statistical analysis show that by Information sharing many organizations faced bankruptcy because all the tactical skills were copied by their counterparts and used for their personal benefit of organization. Hacker is a normal person who resides within a community like any other normal person but having access of computing knowledge, he uses it for his personal benefit or for the benefit of people who hire him. There are different researchers, who worked on the motivations that provoke the practice of hacking, some believe that hacking is due to the financial reasons while others believe that hacking practice is not due to the financial reasons, they only need the finances to make false domains of websites or any other mean that may help their practice of hacking. Some researchers believe that hackers hack for the sake of their satisfaction, they feel accomplished, other believe the hackers hack to gain power over the people that reside is society. Some hackers hack because they feel that it is basic human right that information must not be owned by any group or individuals, they believe that information must be shared amongst the society for the equal progress. The hackers that hack for the positive reasons come under the umbrella term Ethical hacking .

Method of Research:
This research Hacking-Its Effects on Social and Professional Lives of Society is based on Qualitative method of research.

Tools of data collection:

    

E-papers. E-journals. Research papers. Blogs. Questionnaires.

Method of data collection: Random Data collection strategy is adapted for statistical analysis. The data was collected from most used internet website facebook and also from students Of Foundation University Islamabad.

Statistical Analysis

The survey was done in FUIEMS and also on the most popular social website, the results that group managed to obtain from certain questions asked from students and teachers are:

1. What are motivations behind hacking?

All Of Above 31%

To gain power over society 27% For Money 8%

For Pleasure 34%

The question was given to the population that what are the motivations behind the hacking, majority answered for pleasure, 34% people believe that hacking is done for the sake of pleasure and satisfaction rather than financial purposes. 31% believed that hacker is motivated to hack for all purposes listed, i.e. pleasure, to gain power over society and for pleasure. 27% agreed that hacking is motivated that hacker wants to gain power over the society and to the surprise only 8% agreed that hacking is done for money purposes.

Hacking, A Blessing Or Boon?

Blessing 32%

Boon 68%

According to survey majority i.e. 68% considered Hacking a boon and only 32% think otherwise. Majority of people were not aware of the hacking concept and the team had to explain them but still knowing what harm they caused to the society, giving them detailed statistical analysis ,to surprise the people were still positive towards the hacking practice.

Hacking Gives Sense Of Democrecy Or Power?

To gain power 10%

Democracy 90%

This question gave results that were not expected from the general public; only 10% agreed that hacking gives sense of power to the hacker, while 90% agreed that hackers give sense of democracy over the society. This question also showed the positivity of people regarding hacking, they feel intruding into someone s personal lives, breaching into security of multinational organization s security system its positive.

Information Owning Restrains The Basic Rights Of People In Society

Strongly Disagree 10%

Agree 33% Disagree 33% Strongly Agree 24%

According to the analysis, 57% believe that information owning is the right of every individual whereas only 43% thinks otherwise. Information owning is the concept in which the organization or people own their personal data and success recipes and they don t share with the people. The people believe that no one must keep the information to themselves. This information sharing was the cause of downfall of most of the companies.

Can We Put A Barrier To The Ever Increasing Practice of Hacking?

Yes 36% Maybe 46% No 18%

46% answered that we may be able to put a barrier to ever increasing practice of hacking, 36% agreed that we can be able to put barrier to this practice and 18% had a view that we cannot put barrier to practice of hacking in the society. On basis of what people selected further questions were asked to know their positivity or negativity towards hacking. People who answered with no and may be were relatively more positive about the practice of hacking, people who answered yes had total anti hacking thinking.

Hacking A Need, Addiction Or A Hobby?

Need 10%

All Of Above 33%

Hobby 30%

Addiction 27%

Survey shows that 10% of people thinks Hacking is a Need,27% thinks it as a Addiction,30% people thinks hacking is just a hobby and 33% agreed that hacking can b need, hobby or addiction.

Can We Bridge The Gap Between Hacking Society And Normal Society By Phsychological Lectures Or By Subliminal Stimuli Introduced To Them Through Social Media?
Strongly Disagree 5%

Disagree 30%

Agree 50%

Strongly Agree 15%

50% people agreed that we can bridge the gap between hackers community and normal society through psychological lectures,15 percent strongly agreed, we can sum the stats,65% Agree, only 20% disagreed.

Have You Ever Been Victim Of Hacking?

Maybe 4%

Yes 32%

No 64%

Analysis showed 4% of people does not know whether they have been victim of hacking or not,32% people suffered from hacking and majority i.e 64% have not been victim of hacking yet.

Strongly Disagree 5%

To Find a cure to hacking do you believe the generation next has to be psychologically treated in a way that makes them negative about the practice of hacking?

Strongly Agree 30%

Agree 50%

Disagree 15%

50%agreed and 30% strongly agreed, 5 % just disagreed and 15% strongly disagreed that they believe the generation next has to be psychologically treated in a way that makes them negative about the practice of hacking, to sum the results 80% agreed and 20% disagreed.

Have You Ever Been Involved In Hacking Group?

Yes 26%

No 74%

According to the survey 26% of people are involved in hacking activities whereas 74% answered no,majority amongst 74% found it interesting and discussed if they had skill set they must have been hackers because they dreamt about being hacker invisibly intrude the lives of people.

You Find Idea Of Hacking

Disappointing 35%

Encouraging 35%

Discouraging 30%

This questions gave somewhat even statistics, 35% people agreed that they find idea of hacking disappointing,35%agreed that people find the idea of hacking encouraging and 30 said that they find the idea of hacking discouraging.

What Notion COmes To Your Mind When You Come Accross The Word Hacking?
Adventure/Excitem ent 24% Hatred 5% Disgust 9% Exposed 10% Defenselessness 33% Power Over People Or Control over Sociey 19%

33% said that when they hear about hacking they feel defenseless if they could be victim of hacking, 24% marked that hacking is name of excitement and adventure,19% believed that they could control the people in the society,10% felt exposed to such threats and 5% felt hatred to the practice of hacking 15. Can negative geniuses of Hackers be used in a positive way? Answer: Yes, they can be used. But deceptive measures in all reasons are unethical and unIslamic. One has to be straight forward without any Witt of evil geniuses. As one wrong cannot be correction of another wrong. 16. If hacking is considered to be an art among hackers then why is it perceived as a negative job? Answer: It is considered to be an art by hackers because they are doing it and it is lame justification of violation of society."My question is, if it s considered to be an art, so why it s being done in the hidden darkness of a room corner without revealing their identity?"

Perception Of Society Regarding Hacking

Positive Negative

47% 53%

After the survey in which indirect questionnaires were presented to the people, it was concluded that 53% of the society is positive about the practice of hacking and 47% shared some negative view regarding the practice of hacking. Society is positive about the practice even they know that they could be the victim of this practice and suffer like other victims, which leads us to an interesting start of new research.

Conclusion:
The survey had been conducted to find the view of people in the society regarding the practice of hacking. The survey was conducted on social website facebook and also in the Foundation University Islamabad. The Survey gave some surprising results. Knowing the views of youngsters and finding them positive towards hacking, though in black and white it is perceived as a boon or curse to the society. 53% of the people in society believed hacking as a positive job and 47% believed it a curse to the society. From different indirect questionnaires we concluded that majority of people in society are positive about the practice of hacking which is counter to our hypothesis. Recommendations and suggestions:. Align process with policy In 59 percent of data breaches, the organization had security policies and procedures established for the system but these were not enacted through actual processes. Stated differently, victims knew what they needed to do, fully intended to do it, but did not follow through Achieve essential then worry about excellent Eighty-three percent of breaches were caused by attacks not considered to be highly difficult. Eighty-five percent were opportunistic. These statistics are important because they remind us that criminals prefer to exploit weaknesses rather than strengths. In most situations, they will look for an easy opportunity and, finding none, will move on. Secure business partner connections Partners, whether intentionally or unintentionally, contributed to 39 percent of data breaches in the study. A large proportion of these would likely have been avoided through the implementation of basic partner-facing security measures. Create a data retention plan Sixty-six percent of breaches involved data that the victim did not know was on the system. Clearly, knowing what information is present within the organization, its purpose within the business model, where it flows, and where it resides is foundational to its protection. The purpose of an official data retention plan is to provide very specific policies and procedures regarding an organization s management of sensitive data. Organizations should identify and quantify the types of data retained during business activities and then work to categorize data based on risk and liability. In doing so, they should determine what data absolutely cannot suffer compromise and prioritize accordingly. Where not necessitated by valid business need, a strong effort should be made to minimize the retention and replication of data. The creation of a data retention plan should force an organization to discover unknown information, where it lives, who touches it, and what controls are in place to protect it. Control data with transaction zones Once an organization has created a strategy for data retention, the next step is to define an approach to securing that data. In so doing, the creation

of specific transaction zones should be considered. Transaction zones serve as the foundation for IT security which enables organizations to establish granular controls as well as additional layers of accountability (logging). On this platform, organizations can deploy measures such as two-factor authentication or one-time passwords for contractors, etc. Events out of compliance with data control standards are prime candidates for alerts which can be acted upon by the organization. These noncompliance alerts may allow the organization to identify and react to events taking place between the point of entry and compromise. Monitor event logs Evidence of events leading up to 82 percent of data breaches was available to the organization prior to actual compromise. Regardless of the particular type of event monitoring in use, the result was the same: information regarding the attack was neither noticed nor acted upon. Processes that ensure the timely, efficient, and effective monitoring of and response to network events are critical to the goal of protecting data. Such procedures are not new but they are needed. Increase awareness: Twelve percent of data breaches were discovered by employees of the victim organization. This may not seem like much, but it is significantly more than any other means of internal discovery observed during investigations. Why not improve on a good thing? By implementing a required awareness program, an organization can effectively educate employees about the risks of data compromise, their role in preventing it, and how to respond when incidents do occur. If delivered effectively, and with proper incentives, this training can provide a blanket of basic knowledge across the organization on issues pertinent to data protection.

Questionnaires
1. What are motivations behind hacking? 1. To gain power over society 2. For money 3. For pleasure 4. All of above 2. Hacking, a blessing or boon? 1. Blessing 2. Boon 3. Hacking gives a sense of democracy or power? 1. Sense of democracy 2. Power 7. Hacking a need, Addiction or a hobby? 1. 2. 3. 4. Need Hobby Addiction All of above 11. Have you ever been involved in hacking group? 1. Yes. 2. No 12. You find idea of hacking 1. Encouraging 2. Discouraging 3. Disappointing 13. What notion comes to your mind when you come across the word hacking? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Disgust Hatred Exposed Defenselessness. Power over people or control over society 6. Adventure excitement.

8. Can we bridge the gap between hacking society and normal society by psychological lectures or by subliminal stimuli introduced to them through social media? 1. 2. 3. 4. Agree Strongly agree Disagree Strongly disagree

4. Hacking a serious crime or a mischief? 1. Serious crime 2. Mischief 5. Information owning restrains the basic rights of people in society 1. 2. 3. 4. Agree Strongly agree Disagree Strongly disagree

9. Have you ever been victim of hacking? 1. Yes 2. No 3. May be 10. To find a cure to hacking do you believe the generation next has to be psychologically treated in a way that makes them negative about the practice of hacking? 1. 2. 3. 4. Agree Disagree Strongly agree Strongly disagree

6. Can we put a barrier to the ever increasing practice of hacking? 1. Yes 2. No 3. May be

References:
1. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730104576261503496468030.html 2. http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/hacking-unplugged 3. http://itvoir.com/portal/boxx/knowledgebase.asp?iid=307&cat=23 4. http://www.echeat.com/essay.php?t=26060 5. http://www.verizonbusiness.com/resources/security/databreachreport.pdf 6. http://www.kzsu.stanford.edu.uwi/post/mercury.html 7. http://web.ptc.org/library/proceedings/ptc2001/plenary/seo.html