How does hacking work?

Answer 1

The term hacking is vague, the actual definition of hacking is to modify something to work other than how it was intended. When uneducated individuals think of the term hacking they think of penetrating government systems or cracking secret codes in a matter of seconds. This is a Hollywood glamafied view of what actual goes on during true penetration of a network or computer system.

The actual term for what type of "hacking" your asking about is, system penetration.

There are MANY methods of breaking into a system or network. So many you'd really have to research it yourself as it would take days for me to give you a good idea of how many different methods there are of exploiting systems. It can take anywhere from hours, to weeks for someone to exploit and penetrate a well secured network or computer system, the most common and vague methods to do this are,

1. Vulnerabilities in computer applications.

2. Vulnerabilities in web applications.

3. Using human error to their advantage (social engineering)

And much more but to give you a general idea you can use some of the sites listed in the Related Links section below.

Answer 2

Computer hacking refers to the practice of modifying or altering computer software and hardware to accomplish a goal that is considered to be outside of the creator's original objective.