Ethical hacking is a socially accepted form of hacking that seeks to help, rather than hurt, the owners and users of a website or computer network.
In fact, ethical hackers help businesses to be alert to the weaknesses in their security systems so that these can be improved. As businesses use computers and virtual network to house tons and tons of business and customer data,it becomes a highly attractive target for hackers. In this scenario, ethical hackers serve a very useful purpose by identifying weak spots in these systems that can make it vulnerable to unethical hackers.
This segregates hackers into three catogeries :-
These are the one which are also known as ethical hackers. They mostly work into protecting a special asset by live monitoring them and by conducting penetration test on them.
These are the one which does not intend to harm any organisation or assets as black hat hackers, but they use illegal means to discover threads/vulnerabilities in any organisation and use it to teach them a lesson. They can be called as activists. The best example of grey hat hackers is a group named "ANONYMOUS".
Closer to the definition that most people outside the IT world know and use, black hat hackers create programs and campaigns solely for causing damage. This may be anything from stealing information using malware to forcefully shutting down networks using denial-of-service attacks.
Ethical hackers understand all the techniques that malicious hackers use to penetrate a system or network. CEH certification training online offers access
to the knowledge and skills of ethical hacking.
Thus, they use this knowledge to prevent such attacks on different parts of the system, mainly by:
- Identifying vulnerabilities in web applications that can put at risk the security of not only business data, but all the data of thousands of app users.
- Identifying loopholes in the security infrastructure of an IT network that can lead to theft of corporate data.
- Making web servers secure against malicious hacking and attacks such as viruses and Trojan horses.
- Minimizing the risk of data phishing and identity theft that takes place through wireless hotspots.
- Preventing social engineering threats that can make individuals more vulnerable to online scams.