Before talking about the beliefs and activities of digital technology aficionados who are also referred to as “hackers,” we’ll talk about how their defining activity has been framed as a social concern, and how that frame has been contested in many ways. The chapter finishes with several policy recommendations targeted at dealing with the more serious aspects of computer hacking.

Security threats are increasing at an exponential rate, having a significant impact on existing systems and the potential for severe repercussions. Penetration testing, on the other hand, is essential for reducing the impact of these assaults and might be considered a viable option for this task. As a result, the primary goal of this study is to describe the technical and non-technical stages involved in penetration testing. Penetration tests are used to improve the security, efficiency, and resilience of existing systems and their data. Pen testing, in other words, is a simulated attack aimed at discovering any exploitable weakness or security breach.

In addition, the benefits and drawbacks of penetration tests are discussed. The fundamental problem with penetration tests is that they are ineffective at detecting known vulnerabilities. As a result, in addition to boosting the usage of shadow honeypots, a new type of modern penetration test is necessary to fight unforeseen vulnerabilities. This can also be accomplished by bolstering the intrusion detection/prevention system’s anomaly detection. Developing efficient cooperation between the various security parts and penetration tests generally improves security…

Computer programming, inventing, and implementing solutions to issues by integrating software and hardware, and changing and repurposing digital material, software, and digitally controlled hardware devices are all examples of hacking. Some hackers and commentators say that overcoming security methods designed to protect computer networks and digital data stores should be referred to as “cracking” in order to distinguish breaking into systems from more generic hacking behavior.

The term “hack” was first created as an insult, according to Levy’s (2010) widely read account. Only subsequently did the term “engineering achievement” come to denote “hardware achievement.” A programming solution to a software problem that is both unconventional and efficient. In most cases, a hack is seen as an inelegant yet successful solution to a software development problem. Problem: Hacks are occasionally required, but only in the sense that they constitute an unavoidable evil.

A hack, on the other hand, had more positive connotations in the computing cultures that emerged in the late 1960s and have been spreading globally ever since: it came to be widely admired for its efficiency and ingenuity, and, in an intriguing semantic reversal, it came to be regarded as itself elegant. The hack is an episode or “exploit” in which the hacker successfully circumvents layers of electronic and sometimes physical protection in order to get access to the innards of computer networks in a variety of hacking were breaking into secure computer systems is the key activity.

What exactly is a hacker? He or she is a highly trained technician, generally but not usually a software programmer, who investigates and develops answers to problems in computers and domains where computing is employed. Hackers have been classified as technology aficionados that fit a specific social profile - young, often male, and extremely adept with computer technology, according to pioneering research (Jordan and Taylor 1998; Taylor 1999). Hackers' culture revolves around learning and practicing skills in programming and managing computer systems, as well as creating and modifying computer-controlled items.

Hackers are defined by their drive to gain new information and abilities in their profession, as well as peer recognition, a desire for excitement, and a proclivity for problem-solving; they are frequently, but not always, anti-authoritarian. These characteristics are sometimes linked with a desire for personal wealth; however, this is not the case in most hacker stories of their operations, or it is only a minor portion of the entire identity formed in the narrative.

I’ll refer to such hackers and their operations as “open hacking” throughout the chapter. Hackers who work to breach security systems, on the other hand, are less inclined to speak publicly about their work and politics, although their activities have been studied through interviews and personal narratives written by the hackers themselves. While there are significant distinctions between open and clandestine hacker accounts, all hackers' self-representations have creativity, individualism, adaptability, and originality as basic characteristics of the hacker identity in common.

Throughout the chapter, I’ll refer to such hackers and their activities as “open hacking.” Hackers that target security systems, on the other hand, are less likely to speak publicly about their work and politics, even though their operations have been documented through interviews and personal narratives written by the hackers themselves. While there are considerable differences between open and hidden hacker accounts, all hacker self-representations share inventiveness, independence, flexibility, and originality as essential hacker identity attributes.

Much of the imagery and terminology used to represent hackers in fiction, film, and computer games was pioneered by William Gibson’s bestselling novel Neuromancer (1984): “cyberspace”; a “matrix” of networked computer systems and databases; high-value digital data stores that become the target of criminal activity; and the figure of the hacker (most often portrayed as a young male) whose skill is co-op.

Neuromancer was instrumental in establishing the “Cyberpunk” (Cavallaro 2000) sub-genre of science fiction literature, in which a dystopian world is ruled by giant corporations that rival nation-states in power and influence, and where there is rampant individualism, creeping social decay, and extremes of wealth and poverty. Hacking is a complicated field of endeavor. To analyze hacking as a social problem, we must dive further into the open and clandestine elements of hacking, which can manifest as both a social conflict and a continuum. The early hackers of the late 1960s and early 1970s were dedicated to sharing and openness (Levy 2010; Raymond 2003), values that persist in some hacking communities today. In response to this, the 1980s saw the rise of a new breed of the hacker who operated in secret, with the primary goal of circumventing security mechanisms (for the sake of reputation) to do harm to these systems (for personal gain).

Most onlookers could see the two conflicting faces of hacking by the early 1990s. In the world of hacking, the dichotomy between open and clandestine is also articulated in terms of the battle between “Black Hats,” who are clandestine and often portrayed as criminals, and “White Hats,” who work in both open and clandestine modes, but always (ideally) with the goal of upholding the law in their battles against the Black Hats. Ethical hacking, one type of which includes a hacker attempting to infiltrate a protected computer network to assist the network’s administrators in enhancing their security measures, further complicates the situation.

I’m not arguing that actual hackers and their practices fit neatly on one or the other side of that dichotomy when I present an open versus clandestine hacker dichotomy as a starting point in thinking about hacking as a social problem; rather, I use the two categories in terms of their utility as ideal types. Such abstractions are important because they allow us to take a step back from both the complicated reality of hacking and its representations to better understand how and why it is sometimes viewed as a societal problem. In the rest of this chapter, I’ll go over several facets of hacking that span the open-closed spectrum. I’m going to look at hacking as a form of deviance, as a form of Hacking as deviance, hacking as crimes, free and open-source hacker cultures, and politically motivated hacking or hacktivism are all topics I’ll discuss. These things will be considered by me. Via the prism of social constructionism, which includes actors, issues, institutions, and the environment, processes that contribute to the emergence of societal issues.

Because the notion of a social issue is covered in depth elsewhere in this book, I’ll just explain how I apply it to computer hacking. While social problems are created and contestable, this does not negate the fact that genuine structural circumstances provide the framework in which they develop. We have a social problem when one or more groups regard events, processes, or relationships as problematic. The actors in a particular social context do not have to agree that the situation is problematic, nor do they have to agree on the importance of even the presence of structural elements that impact the ostensible social problem. Social scientists are interested in social issues because there is debate among interested parties about what constitutes a social problem and whether phenomena should be classified as one. Once you’ve realized that anything is considered a societal problem, the following question to consider is “a problem for whom?”

Real social circumstances and relationships do exist, but they must be framed through language to be converted into social issues. Furthermore, when we think about a societal problem, we’re also thinking about how to relieve or eradicate it; towards the end of this chapter, I’ll discuss a few policy options that have proven effective in dealing with the negative parts of hacking.

The steps of the problem policy process are discussed by Connor. The first stage is to conceptualize and identify the problem as a collection of people, relationships, events, and behaviors; after that, we must determine what would give a solution to the problem. Hacking as a societal concern has evolved throughout time in stages that may be classified into historical periods. First, we must recognize hacking as a distinct activity and hackers as a distinct type of person; second, we must construct hacking as a problem that requires surveillance and control; and finally, we must construct hacking as a problem that requires surveillance and control; it is at this point, in the 1980s, that the specialized computer security industry emerges.