Hacking is often seen as something bad and illegal, like stealing data, spreading viruses, or messing up websites. But hacking can also be used for good reasons, like testing the security of systems, finding and fixing bugs, or learning new skills. This is called ethical hacking, and it is a cool and useful profession.
Table of Contents
ToggleEthical hacking needs a lot of knowledge and practice, but it also needs a lot of care and responsibility. You can’t just hack any website or system without permission or consequences. You need to follow the law and the ethical rules of hacking.
So how can you learn and practice ethical hacking without breaking the law or hurting anyone? Luckily, there are many websites that teach you how to hack legally and give you a safe and fun place to try your skills. In this blog post, we will show you 5 websites that teach you how to hack legally. Let’s go!
1. Google Gruyere
Google Gruyere is a website that Google made for you to hack. The website is full of holes and uses “cheesy” code, which is why it has a cheese-themed name and design.
When you’re ready to start, Google Gruyere will give you some challenges to do. Google Gruyere has some weak and bad code for you to exploit. The challenges show you these weak spots and give you a task to do. For example, one challenge has you inject HTML alert boxes into the website’s snippets feature, which pop up when the user loads the page.
If you get stuck on how to do a challenge, don’t worry. Each challenge has some hints to help you out. If these don’t help, you can see the solution and do it yourself to see how the exploit works.
2. HackThis
HackThis is a website that asks you to hack it in its name. Of course, you’re not hacking the real website, but it does give you some puzzles to solve.
HackThis has a lot of puzzles in different categories, so you can find something that suits you. There are easy puzzles and hard puzzles to try depending on your skill level. If you want to try cracking simple CAPTCHA codes, there’s a whole section for that. There’s even a “Real” category that has some fun stories where you hack a website for a client.
The best part about HackThis is the hints. Each puzzle has a hints page where you can talk to other people on the forum and ask for help. The people will never tell you the answer so that you can figure it out yourself without spoilers.
3. bWAPP
While hacking websites are helpful, there are some bugs and exploits that they can’t cover. For example, these websites can’t have challenges that involve taking down a website; if they did, no one else would get a chance after that! So it’s better to do more serious attacks on your own server or virtual machine so you don’t damage other people’s websites.
If you’re interested in this kind of hacking, try the buggy web app (bWAPP). The main thing about bWAPP is its huge number of bugs. It has over 100 of them, from Direct Denial of Service (DDoS) weaknesses to Heartbleed vulnerabilities to HTML5 ClickJacking.
To use bWAPP, you need to download it from its website and install it on your own server or virtual machine. Then you can access it from your browser and start hacking it.
4. OverTheWire
OverTheWire is a website that has various wargames that teach you different things about security and hacking. A wargame is a series of levels or challenges that need you to use your skills and knowledge to move on.
OverTheWire has wargames for beginners and experts alike. For example, Bandit is a wargame that teaches you the basics of Linux commands and shell scripting. Natas is a wargame that teaches you web security concepts such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and file inclusion.
To play OverTheWire wargames, you need to use SSH (Secure Shell) to connect to their servers and complete the levels. Each level has a password that lets you access the next level. You can find hints and solutions on their website or on their IRC channel.
Installing Visual Studio Code on Arch Linux: A Comprehensive Guide
5. Hack This Site
Hack This Site is another website that challenges you to hack it legally. It has various missions that cover different topics such as basic web hacking, realistic scenarios, application security, cryptography, steganography (hiding data in images), forensics, and more.
Hack This Site also has an active community of hackers who share their knowledge and experience on their forums and IRC channel. You can also add your own articles or projects to their library or codebase.
Hack This Site also organizes events and competitions for hackers to test their skills and learn from each other.
These are just some of the websites that teach you how to hack legally. There are many more websites out there that can help you learn and practice ethical hacking in different ways.
The best way to find out which website works best for you is to try them out yourself. You might be surprised by how much fun and rewarding ethical hacking can be!