What is Ethical Hacking?

Ethical hacking is an IT security discipline that focuses on assessing vulnerabilities and potential threats to a system to identify how best to penetrate it. It often requires a skilled hacker with the right tools, experience, and mindset; as such, ethical hackers generally do not engage in malicious attacks.

In 2013 there were 3.2 billion connected devices worldwide, but this figure is expected to grow exponentially in the next few years. This phenomenal increase in use of technology allows opportunities for hackers to target new systems or methods with ease. The security industry has taken notice of these changes and has begun training more professionals in ethical hacking techniques as well as devising methods of detecting them before they are breached.

Ethical hacking is the procedure by which you get the unauthorized access of a computer. The security experts are the ethical hackers who get the computer access to perform the security access of it.

It is a measure to improve the security of an organization. Therefore, the companies hire ethical hackers to ensure the overall security of an organization.

Ethical hacking is different from malicious hacking. In ethical hacking, the IT knows about the procedure and gives the approval to start it.

List of the problems which the hackers identify through ethical hacking

The aim of the ethical hacking is to mimic the hacker to avoid the sensitive information of the company going in the wrong hands. The ethical hacker gathers all the details regarding the business on the orders of the company head. Then, the hacker starts working on it to place in it a secure way so that information does not go out. However, the information goes out and it causes a threat to the company. The competitors will start taking the advantage of it using the sensitive details and copying the strategies of the business. It is the worst situation then, for the company. It can affect the growth and development of it. It is necessary to employ a hacker in the company to deal with the following vulnerable situations.

• Broken authentication issues
• Misconfiguration in the security systems of the company
• Exposure of the company’s sensitive data outside
• Components use that cause vulnerabilities

The ethical hackers start with the testing period in collecting the information of the company and preparing the report regarding the cyber security of the company. It takes them to research and check out all the parameters as to how the ethical hacker keeps the company’s sensitive details securely from the hackers.

Hacking for Ethical Purpose is separated into two classes one is White Hat Hacking and another is Black Hat Hacking. White Hat Hacking is nothing but a process of identifying and exploiting the weaknesses of the targets or network. This is the process that identifies and fixes the vulnerabilities of the targets or network. In this process, the hackers create a code and test it on the target which can cause damage to the system. The results are submitted to the company and the owner of the system in order to fix the weakness. While Black Hat Hacking is the process of identifying vulnerability to exploit it and harm the system, data, or any other valuable information.

Ethical hacking, often called "white-hat" hacking, involves legally hacking into systems and networks to spot possible weaknesses. Ethical computer criminals are computer security professionals who imitate the strategies of computer criminals, not to cause harm, but to help organizations defend themselves.

For example, a company might want to test if its website is secure. They could hire an ethical hacker to pretend an attack. If the ethical hacker discovers a weakness that could expose customer data, they report it, allowing the company to fix the issue before a criminal (bold or daring acts) does it. This type of security test is known as a penetration test, and it's a key part of modern computer security.