Cyber Seurity and Ethical Hacking

   CYBER SECURITY:

INTRODUCTION: 

         The Internet is as yet developing and online business is on its progress. The immense development of Internet has brought numerous great things like electronic commerce, email, simple access to tremendous stores of reference material and so forth. An ever increasing number of computers get associated with the Internet, wireless devices and networks are blasting. Because of the propel innovation of the Internet, the administration, private industry and the regular computer client have fears of their information or private data being contained by a criminal hacker. These kinds of hackers are called black hat hackers who will covertly take the association's data and transmit it to the open internet. In this way, to overcome from these real issues, another class of hackers appeared and these hackers are named as ethical hackers or white hat hackers. Along these lines, this paper portrays ethical hackers, their aptitudes and how they approach helping their clients and fitting up security openings. In this way, if there should be an occurrence of computer security, these tiger groups or ethical hackers would utilize similar traps and strategies that hacker utilizes yet in a legitimate way and they would neither harm the objective frameworks nor take data. Rather, they would assess the objective framework's security and report back to the proprietors with the vulnerabilities they found and guidelines

What is Hacking?

 

     Hacking is identifying weakness in computer systems or networks to exploit its weaknesses to gain access.

Example of Hacking: Using password cracking algorithm to gain access to a system
Computers have become mandatory to run a successful businesses. It is not enough to have isolated computers systems; they need to be networked to facilitate communication with external businesses. This exposes them to the outside world and hacking. Hacking means using computers to commit fraudulent acts such as fraud, privacy invasion, stealing corporate/personal data, etc. Cyber crimes cost many organizations millions of dollars every year. Businesses need to protect themselves against such attacks.

Who is a Hacker? Types of Hackers

 

A Hacker is a person who finds and exploits the weakness in computer systems and/or networks to gain access. Hackers are usually skilled computer programmers with knowledge of computer security.
Hackers are classified according to the intent of their actions. The following list classifies hackers according to their intent.

White hat

        A white hat hacker breaks security for non-malicious reasons, for instance testing their own security system. This type of hacker enjoys learning and working with computer systems, and consequently gains a deeper understanding of the subject. Such people normally go on to use their hacking skills in legitimate ways, such as becoming security consultants. The word 'hacker' originally included people like this, although a hacker may not be someone into security.

Grey hat

        A grey hat hacker is a hacker of ambiguous ethics and/or borderline legality, often frankly admitted.

Black hat

        A black hat hacker is someone who breaks computer security without authorization or uses technology (usually a computer, phone system or network) for vandalism, credit card fraud, identity theft, piracy, or other types of illegal activity.

Script kiddie 

        A script kiddie is a non-expert who breaks into computer systems by using pre-packaged automated tools written by others, usually with little understanding. These are the outcasts of the hacker community.

Hacktivist

      A hacktivist is a hacker who utilizes technology to announce a social, ideological, religious, or political message. In general, most hactivism involves website defacement or denial-of-service attacks. In more extreme cases, hactivism is used as tool for Cyberterrorism.

What is Ethical Hacking?

          Ethical Hacking is identifying weakness in computer systems and/or computer           networks and coming with countermeasures that protect the weaknesses. Ethical hackers must abide by the following rules.

• Get written permission from the owner of the computer system and/or computer network before hacking.
• Protect the privacy of the organization been hacked.
• Transparently report all the identified weaknesses in the computer system to the organization.
• Inform hardware and software vendors of the identified weaknesses.                       

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 cyber criminals who would otherwise lead to loss of business.

Legality of Ethical Hacking

 

Ethical Hacking is legal if the hacker abides by the rules stipulated in the above section on the definition of ethical hacking. The International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC-Council) provides a certification program that tests individual’s skills. Those who pass the examination are awarded with certificates. The certificates are supposed to be renewed after some time.


click here to see some tools and terms you should know about hacking:

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. 

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