Ethical or White Hat Hackers Are the Backbone of Digital Landscape
Ethical hackers are essential in this internet world crawling with cybercrimes. All across the globe, hackers have been portrayed as bad guys. They are also called cyber-criminals and scammers looking to steal information, destroy the system and damage anything hindering their goals.
Hackers are always seen as villains in TV shows, movies, magazines, and news. They are portrayed as outliers having good computer knowledge but use it to commit a crime. Fortunately, there are lots of folks with ethical hacking knowledge, who endlessly make efforts to ensure that the internet is a safe and secure place. In other words, these experts use their great coding and hacking skills for good work and not immoral activities.
What actually is ethical hacking?
A trusted person hired by an organization to undertake an attempt to penetrate a computer system or/and networks using techniques that malicious minded hackers do. As bad guys are regularly making attempts to find anonymous ways to hack, it is crucial to have an ethical hacker. Besides revealing system flaws, an ethical hacker helps in fixing them before cybercriminals even get a chance to exploit the exposed vulnerabilities.
Benefits of ethical hacking to the software sector
Today, tech giants like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc. partner with ethical hacker team to maintain a secure system. Hikvision has been running an educational program regarding coding vulnerabilities found in firmware and hardware, which can be exploited. All devices that operate on the network are computers and can be vulnerable. Therefore, it is crucial to hire ethical hackers, who have a diverse skill set to identify the variety of vulnerabilities and help to patch or fix it.
For example, scanning tools are used to uncover open ports. The susceptibilities of every port are reviewed and corrective steps are taken, if necessary. The patch is installed and tested to ensure that it cannot be misused.
Other concepts like rummaging through trash for charts, passwords or any sensitive data usable for hackers are engineered. They even try to avert firewalls, IPS, IDS, and honeypots. Actions like cracking & bypassing wireless encryption and hijacking web applications & servers, are also carried out.
Networks are pen tested at regular intervals for identifying weak links. The ethical hackers even explore damage scope, which can happen due to recognized susceptibility.
Remember, hacker always does not always mean criminal. The online eco-system is made robust and safe by ethical hackers!
