Internet Security and Ethical Hacking

Internet Security and Ethical Hacking

Welcome to the unique confluence of hackers , crackers and security professionals

on the world wide web. This is your complete resource for internet security and ethical hacking.

-: The Ethical Hacker :-Most people thinks that hackers are computer criminals. They fail to recognise the fact that criminals and hackers are two totally different things. Media is responsible for this. Hackers in reality are actually good and extremely intelligent people who by using their knowledge in a constructive manner help organisations, companies, goverment, etc. to secure documents and secret information on the internet. 

An ethical hacker is a computer and network expert who attacks a security system on behalf of its owners, seeking vulnerabilities that a malicious hacker could exploit. To test a security system, ethical hackers use the same methods as their less principled counterparts, but report problems instead of taking advantage of them. Ethical hacking is also known aspenetration testing, intrusion testing and red teaming. An ethical hacker is sometimes called a white hat, a term that comes from old Western movies, where the "good guy" wore a white hat and the "bad guy" wore a black hat.

One of the first examples of ethical hackers at work was in the 1970s, when the United States government used groups of experts called red teams to hack its own computer systems. According to Ed Skoudis, Vice President of Security Strategy for Predictive Systems' Global Integrity consulting practice, ethical hacking has continued to grow in an otherwise lackluster IT industry, and is becoming increasingly common outside the government and technology sectors where it began. Many large companies, such as IBM, maintain employee teams of ethical hackers.

In order for hacking to be deemed ethical, the hacker must obey the below rules.

1. You have permission to probe the network and attempt to identify potential security risks. It's recommended that if you are the person performing the tests that you get written consent.
2. You respect the individual's or company's privacy and only go looking for security issues.
3. You report all security vulnerabilities you detect to the company, not leaving anything open for you or someone else to come in at a later time.
4. 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.

The term "ethical hacker" has received criticism at times from people who say that there is no such thing as an "ethical" hacker. 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. This certification is provided by the International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC-Council). The exam itself costs about $500 to take and consists of 125 multiple-choice questions in version 8 of the test (version 7 consisted of 150 multiple-choice questions).