Ethical Hacking Background

Hello All,

To kick off the first post of the year, I thought I would briefly go into the background of Ethical hacking which is part of a key subject area and interest of mine – IT Security.

When casually chatting amongst friends, about hacking it can very quickly, be seen as a negative aspect of computing, and only something, that people with malicious intentions practice. In fact although the negative aspects of hacking are partly true, there are some good sides to it as well!

As basic start you have two main types of hacker – Black Hat and White Hat. A Black hat hacker, is a person, who attacks a system with malicious intent, where as a white hat hacker, is a person with a more positive, or exploratory purpose.

Also without steering to far off the subject of network and IT security, the term ‘Hack’ could be used, in the form of a short cut someone has found for a system. As you can see another positive side, to the work Hacking.

Anyway getting back to the main point, of Ethical hacking. As you can see from above, there are two main forms of hacker. As you may have already, guessed, we can associate a Ethical hacker with a White hat hacker. So what makes a Ethical hacker different apart from the points already mentioned? Also why is it justified for them to ‘hack’ a system?

In general an Ethical hacker is usually employed by someone else to test a system for vulnerabilities, a less reputable person (black hat), may exploit. Usually using the same tools and procedures(none of which i will name :p ), a Ethical hacker can identify holes in a system, and generate a report, to give to the owner of the system, listing the vulnerabilities, and possible solutions. This process in the business world, usually is called penetration testing or intrusion testing.

So in response to our two main questions – It is justified for an ethical hacker to attempt an attack or compromise, as they would have the permission of the owner and be doing it for a good purpose. This reason also goes in hand with what makes an ethical hacker different.

In this age when technology is at its height, and we use it to store and manipulate, so much of our personal details, the services a Ethical hacker provides are very much important to each and every organisation, dealing in information. A good report from a penetration test can really help an organisations ‘Plan-Protect-Repond’ cycle.

As you have most likely gathered, how certain tools and procedures are used, is really put down to the discretion and morals of that user.

Well as you can see this is a basic background into Ethical hacking and I intend build on this in new posts!

That’s it for now!