Literally anyone can be a hacker.
If you guess your ex’s password and snoot in their gmail your a “hacker”.
Or you could be a more advanced one who can do complex stuff.
The vast majority of what people consider “hacking” against targets and peopel abd organizations comes a lot less from people having technical skill and a lot more from them exploiting that people screw up and give away information.
The hack on the DNC is a prime example. It wasn’t sophisticated at all, it was something a high school kid could pull off. They learned what John Podestas Gmail account was and sent an email that looked like it was a security alert telling him to change his password, with a link to a fake gmail website that harvested his password.
It was a very basic lack of security that led him to give them his password. It didn’t help that he asked a DNC IT staffer who told him it was a legitimate email.
It wasn’t sophisticated at all. Hell, it used bit.ly to shorten the URL to the fake google website, a simple giveaway and evidence they were not even trying that hard.
Almost all hacking gets into system like that, trucking people. Be it phishing emails, social engineering by calling people, or other means to get people to give access.
Very little of the “hacking” in the world is from people who are doing what you see in movies and just brute force breaking into computer system. Almost all comes from legit users of a system compromising their credentials and allowing someone to get access they can exploit.
As an example of how easy it is, let’s say I wanted to screw with DU users. I would buy domain names for DU with common misspellings of it, as people often make typos in long URL’s. Then I would set it up to look like DU, prompt you to log in and then store the passwords you give. Then even redirect you to the real DU where you are already logged in or you think it didn’t take and just put your credentials in again- without a second thought. But now I have your login and password.
Do I need more credentials? Easy enough to make troll accounts on Facebook and post links to to the fake DI claiming it’s to hot topics, targeting groups that are likely to have DU members.
Before long I have hundreds of credentials. I go on, change your passwords and I’m posting as you. And if you used the same password for that same username or email anywhere else I can own that too. If you have the same password here as the email you used to register I own all that now once I changed the email, then I can get into anything and everything you have registered to that email.
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