Ethical Hacking Concept: Ethical hacking is the term used to describe hacking performed by a company or individual to help in identifying potential threats on a computer system or network. An ethical hacker attempts to bypass way past the system security and search for any loopholes that may be exploited by malicious hackers. This information is then used by the organization to improve the system security, to mitigate, minimize or eliminate, any potential risks of attacks.
In order for hacking to be deemed ethical, the hacker must maintain the following principles:
- Expressed (often written) permission to probe the network and attempt to identify potential security risks.
- You respect the individual’s or company’s privacy.
- You close out your work, not leaving anything open for you or someone else to exploit at a later time.
- You let the software developer or hardware manufacturer know of any security vulnerabilities you locate in their software or hardware if not already known by the company.
Ethical Hacker Concept: An old concept was that hacking is hacking, no matter how you look at it and those who do the hacking are commonly referred to as computer criminals. However, the work that ethical hackers do for organizations has helped improve system security and can be said to be quite successful. Individuals interested in becoming an ethical hacker can work towards a certification to become a Certified Ethical Hacker or CEH. This certification is provided by the International Council of E‑Commerce Consultants (EC-Council).