Ethical Hacking

Definition Ethical Hacking

An ethical computer hacker is and expert who specialises in penetration testing and other testing methodologies that ensure the security of an organisation's information systems.

Thus, the word “ethics” is based on well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, and the term “ethical” is doing what the law requires and not against it. Ethical hackers are often referred as White Hat Hackers.

Technically, Ethical Hacking involves getting an authorised consent to attempt and access (hack) into a computer system, application or data. This involves various strategies and actions or techniques which typically demonstrates what a malicious attacker would do, in other words, it is all about hacking legally. All the assessment done and the vulnerabilities found are documented and reported to be resolved before a malicious attacker has an opportunity to exploit them.

Types of Hackers

Now, there is various prospects to classifying hackers, but they can broadly be classified into following 3 types :

Thus, the good guys the White Hat Hackers or Ethical Hackers, or Penetration Testers, these are the security professionals who use their skills (hacking techniques), tools and technologies to locate weakness or vulnerabilities in a system and implement countermeasures to mitigate or fix these flaws and help saving their assets from grave danger of cyber threats.

They are granted with permission to hack into a company’s or asset’s network, system or applications prior to the beginning of their hacking activity and are trusted, they do the required assessments and report the found flaws which are then fixed making their asset secure.

These are the bad guys as termed the Black Hat Hackers or malicious hackers or crackers who use their skills and knowledge for malicious or illegal purposes. They break or hack into a system violating its integrity and without the authority of the owner with malicious intent which can be data theft, destroy vital data, deny legitimate user access and cause various problems to their target.

These type hackers are ones who cause havoc in the internet and are feared by private as well as government organisations, thus, the complete opposite to the White Hats, they live up to the traditional definition of what hackers are thought to be.

The Grey Hat Hackers, however have a controversial meaning, which is their activity or intents are neither of the likes of the White Hat or Black Hat Hackers, but somewhere in between. To simply put these are the hackers having knowledge and skills of hacking, tools and techniques but they do not necessarily cause chaos like Black Hats do, they may hack into a system without prior permission just to check the security and their capability to hack into it but do not steal money or cause damage to vital data, they do it all too feed their curiosity. They might highlight security problems in a system or educate victims so they can secure their systems properly.

Thus, these hackers act independently and even when they perform hacks they do not cause much trouble to the target, unlike the Black Hats do, but they do it without permission which is why they are somewhere between the White and the Black Hats, hence, the necessary evil they might consider themselves.

Skills and Certifications for Ethical Hackers

Ethical Hackers should have a wide and variety of skills, of which Computer Skills are considered most trivial.

They even specialise in becoming a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in a particular area within the ethical hacking domain, for example, an individual maybe be good in hacking Web application technologies like websites and content management systems (CMS) etc. while another maybe good in network hacking like wifi, packet injection etc.

Depends on what area interests the individual, overall the ethical hackers should possess these skills :

> CompTIA Security+

> EC Council Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)

> Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP) Certification

> Cisco’s CCNA Security

And there are many more depending on the level of exams and modules.

Conclusion

The Internet is expanding day by day, and so is the E-Commerce industry, research shows a significant growth in the number of internet users, and businesses are majorly relying on the internet for their functioning. With things getting more and more operated online, the risk of security breach and data leakage is also increasing.

In today’s time, hackers are coming up with new tools and techniques to plunder the databases of the organisations and cause potential damage to their businesses. Where the new hacking techniques are evolving regularly, the companies need more enhanced plans and security measures along with improves tools to prevent such attacks. For this reason, the demand for skilled Ethical Hackers is also increasing. As per the recent data based on the market research, there is a demand of 0.47 million ethical hackers in India, who can protect the IT infrastructure across the nation and also serve the export market. Which clearly indicates that Ethical hacking are very important, and thus it has a very bright future.

You can check the brief article on Cyber Security — Career Benefits for a rough reference.

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