Attack! Ethical Hacking

Introduction to Ethical Hacking

An Ethical Hacker (also known as a white hat hacker) is the ultimate security professional. Ethical hackers know how to find and exploit vulnerabilities and weaknesses in various systems. In fact, they use the same skills; however, an ethical hacker uses those skills in a legitimate, lawful manner to try to find vulnerabilities and fix them before the bad guys can get there and try to break in.

An ethical hacker’s role is similar to that of a penetration tester, but it involves broader duties. They break into systems legally and ethically. This is the primary difference between ethical hackers and real hackers—the legality means Law.

Hackers are varied creatures and include these 7 types:

Symbol	Description
	Ethical Hacker (White hat): A hacker who gains access to systems with a view to fixing the identified weaknesses. They may also perform penetration Testing and vulnerability assessments.
	Cracker (Blackhat): A hacker who gains unauthorized access to computer systems for personal gain. The intent is usually to steal corporate data, violate privacy rights, transfer funds from bank accounts etc.
	Grey hat: A hacker who is in between ethical and black hat hackers. He/she breaks into computer systems without authority with a view to identify weaknesses and reveal them to the system owner.
	Script kiddies: A non-skilled person who gains access to computer systems using already made tools.
	Hacktivist: A hacker who use hacking to send social, religious, and political, etc. messages. This is usually done by hijacking websites and leaving the message on the hijacked website.
	Phreaker: A hacker who identifies and exploits weaknesses in telephones instead of computers.

Why Ethical Hacking?

• Information is one of the most valuable assets of an organization. Keeping information secure can protect an organization’s image and save an organization a lot of money.
• Hacking can lead to loss of business for organizations that deal in finance such as PayPal. Ethical hacking puts them a step ahead of the cybercriminals who would otherwise lead to loss of business.

Summary

• Hacking is identifying and exploiting weaknesses in computer systems and/or computer networks.
• Cybercrime is committing a crime with the aid of computers and information technology infrastructure.
• Ethical Hacking is about improving the security of computer systems and/or computer networks.
• Ethical Hacking is legal.