The explosive growth of the Internet has brought many good things with technical advancements, also there is a dark side: criminal hackers.

The term “hacker” has a dual usage in the computer industry today.

A person who enjoys learning the details of computer systems and knows how to stretch their capabilities.

One who programs enthusiastically or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming.

Category of Hackers:

Script Kiddies or Cyber-Punks:

Between 12-30; predominantly white and male; bored in school; get caught due to bragging online; intent is to vandalize or disrupt systems.

Professional Criminals or Crackers:

Make a living by breaking into systems and selling the information.

Coders and Virus Writers:

See themselves as an elite; programming background who writes code but won’t use it themselves. They have their own networks called “zoos”; leave it to others to release their code into “The Wild” or Internet.

Black Hat:

Black hats are the bad guys: the malicious hackers or crackers

who use their skills for illegal (Offensive) or malicious purposes.

White Hat:

White Hats are the good guys, the ethical hackers who use their hacking skills for defensive purposes.

Grey Hat:

Grey hats are hackers who may work offensively or defensively, depending on the situation.

Who are Ethical Hackers ?

“One of the best ways to evaluate the intruder threat is to have an independent computer security professionals attempt to break their computer systems”

Successful ethical hackers possess a variety of skills. First and foremost, they must be completely trustworthy.

Ethical hackers typically have very strong programming and computer networking skills.

They are also adept at installing and maintaining systems that use the more popular operating systems (e.g., Linux or Windows 2000) used on target systems.

These base skills are augmented with detailed knowledge of the hardware and software provided by the more popular computer and networking hardware vendors.

How do Ethical Hackers Work?

Ethical hackers

Employed by companies to perform penetration tests, security tests.

Penetration test

Legal attempt to break into a company’s network to find its weakest link

Tester only report findings, does not solve problems

Security test (SA) + (EH)

More than an attempt to break in; also includes analyzing company’s security policy and procedures

 



By: Anand Ravindran

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