sends the information back to the hacker. This information is of course sent to bogus e-mail or a newsgroup where the hacker is waiting to snatch it up. There are numerous ways to cloak your e-mail and create ghost accounts but that is beyond the scope of this paper. It is only important to know that it can be done. One of the programs used by hackers is called a mockingbird. This is a small program that automatically intercepts name/password combinations as they are entered and send them back to the hacker. Another method may arise from some consultation work. While working on site the hacking may create a back door. Having done this he has a way to access the network and full access to everything he wants. Also, while on site the hacker may spy a yellow sticky note on someones computer with his or her password written on it. One clever method of obtaining password is called spoofing. The hacker sends e-mail to someone claiming to be a boss, or more often, a worker in the IT department. The hacker asks the user to type in their password and send it so it can be authenticated. This works better than one might think; most people are trained to polite and responsive to their superiors. However, for every hacker trying to break in, there is a system administrator on the other side trying to build walls strong enough to keep data secure. One method companies use to fight back against hackers is known as bait and trace. There are several other names that are interchangeable, most notable being: iron box and Venus flytrap. These are all names for special traps set up to catch a cracker who is logging in over a remote connection. The idea is to provide the cracker with limited access to your network and also offer interesting information (known as bait files) to keep the user on the system long enough to be traced. An iron box is sometimes made up of an imitation operating system, a false shell that appears to be complete, but restricts the i...
