How to Determine Who Is Hacking?
Identifying an amateur hacker can be surprisingly easy, once you understand how to read your firewall logs and identify IP addresses. Fortunately, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, all computers are assigned a particular IP address that allows specialists to identify the computer that was used to hack into a computer. Then, you can use strange IP addresses to identify who the intruder is. However, sophisticated hackers can figure out how to hack into a computer in a covert way that may prevent you from identifying the hacker.
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Instructions
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Install a firewall, if you do not already have one. Firewalls will prevent the majority of attempts to hack into a computer and you will need one to identify the hacker, if one does bypass your firewall.
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Read your firewall logs to determine whether someone gained unauthorized access to your computer. Firewalls are used to accept or deny access into your computer, allowing you to block many hacking attempts. However, the firewall also produces a log that lets you know every IP address that tries to access your computer. Especially read the logs in the morning to see whether someone is accessing your computer at night. After reading your logs regularly, ZD Net says, you will begin to understand which logs are normal activities and which ones are abnormal, allowing you to identify malicious attempts to gain unauthorized access.
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Go to a website that tracks IP addresses, such as WhatIsMyIPAddress.com. You will receive the hostname, geographic location information and a map that shows the hacker’s specific location, taken from a geolocation database. If the IP address is a proxy server, the service will struggle to predict the exact location of the user, but can get within 25 miles of the actual location 60 percent of the time.
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Go to the “Who Is” database. Call the owner and find out why he is trying to access your computer. The owner will often be an ISP owner, who can identify who the perpetrator is from a list of customers.
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Tips & Warnings
Internet service providers do not always keep records long enough for law enforcement to look through the records. However, law enforcement can send a retention letter ordering Internet service providers to keep their records.
According to Tech Radar, the majority of hackers are in countries with relaxed computer laws. In addition, the Chinese government has a large number of hackers monitoring Western computer systems.
Hackers can hack into computers and then use these computers to hack other computers. This can make it difficult to determine where the original hacking attempt came from.
Many hackers rely on malicious codes to take over computers, known as Trojans. These Trojans are bundled into a seemingly innocent piece of software. The code activates when web users download the file. Do not download files from websites that you do not trust.
References
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