Ethical Hacking

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Who is a hacker? Most people see a hacker as someone who exploits vulnerabilities of electronic devices and system, network, and computer to use in malicious activity. About.com wrote "Hacking is any technical effort to manipulate the normal behavior of network connections and connected systems. A hacker is any person engaged in hacking. The term "hacking" historically referred to constructive, clever technical work that was not necessarily related to computer systems. Today, however, hacking and hackers are most commonly associated with malicious programming attacks on the Internet and other networks." It's true that hacking is mostly associated with undesired activities and intrusion. However, not all hackers are bad. There are, in fact, several types of hackers that exist; white hat hackers, black hat hackers, grey hat, elite, neophyte, blue hat, and hacktivist. Black hat hacker are called crackers and "they violates computer security for little reason beyond maliciousness or for personal gain" (Moore, 2005) Today, most people who are not computer professionals use the term 'hacker' to define cracker. Black hackers conduct illegal activities through computer. On the other hand, white hat hackers are considered to be "good" since they do not hack to harm others. Their intention is study networks and computers with hacker set of mind to find vulnerabilities and weakness and provide with recommendation on how to improve to protect from black hat hackers. White hat hackers are often called certified penetration tester. This paper will discuss white hat hackers or penetration testers.
How you become a white hat hacker? White hat hacking or penetration testing is a career in IT field. The professions arose out of needs. "Businesse...

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... ethical crime or ethical hacking. However, I believe ethical hacking should exist. "An ethical hacker is usually employed by an organization who trusts him or her to attempt to penetrate networks and/or computer systems, using the same methods as a hacker, for the purpose of finding and fixing computer security vulnerabilities." (Wikipedia) In other words, white hat hackers do not hack into systems without authorization and permission. Furthermore, the findings they reveal through hacking is used to improve the system thus building more secure system. Again, businesses and governments hire penetration testers to identify security risks, threats and vulnerabilities of networks, systems, software and develop intrusion detection systems, anti-virus programs, and software deployment tools. Ethical hacking, therefore, should be seen and respected as professional career.

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