What Is Ethical Hacking?

Ethical hacking involves hacking security systems of organisations with their consent with the intent of finding the faults and identifying the areas of improvements to make the systems more secure. Thus, Ethical Hacking is a legal version of Hacking.

Ethical hackers are also called ‘white hat hackers’, while the hackers are called ‘black hat hackers’. The primary difference between an ethical hacker and a real hacker is legality.

Ethical hackers improve the security posture of an organization. Ethical hackers use the same tools, tricks, and techniques that malicious hackers used, but with the permission of the authorized person. The purpose of ethical hacking is to improve the security and to defend the systems from attacks by malicious users.

Scope Of Ethical Hacking:

Ethical hacking is generally used as penetration testing to detect vulnerabilities, risk and identify the loopholes in a security system and to take corrective measures against those attacks. Ethical hacking is a key component of risk evaluation, auditing, and counter-frauds.

It is a good career if you are interested in the ethical hacking and cybersecurity field but it requires a great knowledge of the whole IT field.

The scope for the Ethical Hackers is high and it is one of the rapidly growing careers at present as many malicious attackers cause a threat to the business and its networks. Industries like Information Technology and Banking Sectors hire several Ethical hackers to protect their data and infrastructure. Also, in the upcoming days, the demand for this profile is going to be high compared to other profiles due to an increased threat of vulnerabilities.

Skills Required to Become an Ethical Hacker

An ethical hacker should have in-depth knowledge about all the systems, networks, program codes, security measures, etc. to perform hacking efficiently. Some of these skills include:

Knowledge of programming - It is required for security professionals working in the field of application security and Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

Scripting knowledge - This is required for professionals dealing with network-based attacks and host-based attacks.

Networking skills - This skill is important because threats mostly originate from networks. You should know about all of the devices present in the network, how they are connected, and how to identify if they are compromised.

Understanding of databases - Attacks are mostly targeted at databases. Knowledge of database management systems such as SQL will help you to effectively inspect operations carried out in databases.

Knowledge of multiple platforms like Windows, Linux, Unix, etc.

Knowledge of search engines and servers.

The ability to work with different hacking tools available in the market.

Ethical Hacking Process :

Reconnaissance –

It is the principal stage where the Hacker attempts to gather data about the objective. It incorporates Identifying the Target, discovering the objective’s IP Address Range, DNS records, Network, and so on.

Scanning –

In this stage, the hacker starts to effectively test an objective machine or organization for weaknesses that can be abused. It incorporates the utilization of apparatuses like dialers, network mappers, sweepers, port scanners, and weakness scanners to check information.

Gaining Access –

In this stage, the hacker plans the outline of the organization of the objective with the assistance of information gathered during observation and checking. The hacker has got done with identifying and checking the organization and now concludes that they have a few alternatives to access the organization.

Maintaining Access –

It is the interaction where the hacker has effectively gotten entrance into a framework. By getting entrance, the hacker introduces a few secondary passages to go into the framework when he needs access in this possessed framework in the future. Metasploit is the favored apparatus in this cycle.

Clearing Tracks –

This process is basically an unethical activity. It has to do with the erasure of logs of the multitude of exercises that occur during the hacking interaction.

Reporting –

It is the last step of finishing the ethical hacking process. In this the Ethical Hacker aggregates a report with his discoveries and the work that was done, for example, the instruments utilized, weaknesses found, the achievement rate, and the endeavor measures.

Advantages of Ethical Hacking :

This helps to fight against cyber terrorism and to fight against national security breaches.

This helps to take preventive action against hackers.

This helps to build a system that prevents any kinds of penetration by hackers.

This offers security to banking and financial establishments.

This helps to identify and close the open holes in a computer system or network.

ECH: Certified Ethical Hacker