WHY DO COMPANIES NEED ETHICAL HACKERS?
The rapid technological change has brought with it a number of issues. One of the issues that it has brought is the issue of increased cybercrime conducted by black hats. Black hats target almost everyone, but we will mainly focus on attacks which occur in organizations. Hackers take advantage of the fact that more and more organizations are turning to the internet to interact with their customers, because of this the amount of critical data moving around systems is growing faster. The more information that is exchanged using technology, the more are companies putting themselves in danger of falling victims of such attacks.
The lack of awareness of data security is a contributing factor to the rapid increase of successful attacks conducted by people known as hackers. So we ask ourselves, who are these hackers and why do they do what they do? Black hat hackers also known as crackers are people who usually conduct planned attacks that are designed to steal critical information and destroy data. They gain un-authorized access to systems with the intention of causing malicious damage.
Hackers do what they do:
-To show the extent of their knowledge
-For thrill and excitement
-To get even
-Curiosity
-For financial gain
-Intellectual challenge
Hackers being the intellectual beings that they are, they manipulate and bypass security systems without being detected by the organizations. Organizations rarely notice when there has been a breach of security this goes to show how smart hackers really are. Why do companies keep falling victims of such attacks? Most companies rely on defense tools such as firewalls, anti-virus software’s, DPI firewalls, etc. as defense that protects their confid...
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...cedures when employing ethical hackers, they need to ensure that the process is conducted in terms of a contractual agreement that sets out the scope, boundaries, limitations and other specifics to the assignment.
• At the end of the contract all the information that is related to the work of the ethical hacker must be destroyed to prevent the hacker from getting any unauthorized access in the future.
• Organizations must regularly check up on the activities of ethical hackers, they must form part of the team and not lack behind on what is happening in their business.
Organizations need to start to reconsider employing ethical hackers in their business environments. The employment of ethical hackers is not only good for the organizations, but is also good for the ethical hackers because they will be earning an honest living.
Works Cited
www.ethicalhacker.com
The Ted Talk presented by Catherine Bracy took the word hacking to another level. A new way of looking at a hacker. A hacker meaning much more than a teen behind a computer trying to steal information. The points she brought out is that reaching out to the people can get things done and strengthen relationships between people and an organization and through that relationship both parties are more stable and content. Bracy expressed her experiences with hackers in a government and citizen view, but this can also be applied to personal and
In chapter six of the text it explained the hacker code of ethics and the issues associated with it. An ethical hacker is defined as a computer and networking expert who systematically attempts to penetrate a computer system or network on behalf of its owners for finding security vulnerabilities that malicious hackers could infiltrate. American journalist Steven Levy established six principals for hacker code of ethics. The six principal are limited computer access, free use of information, mistrusted- authority, examination of hacker, creation, and support in life for advancement. These principal has been controversial to many based on personal moral. As for creating appropriate set of guidelines for non-malicious hackers without becoming
The use of hacking to identify weaknesses in computer security has become an increasingly controversial issue in recent years. Awareness of this issue is important, because our ever increasing reliance on technology means that breaches in computer security have the potential to have wide-ranging and devastating consequences to society, worldwide. This essay will begin by clearly defining the term ‘hacking’ and will examine the type of people who hack and for what reasons. There will then follow a discussion of the moral argument on hacking before examining a few brief examples. The essay will then conclude by arguing against the use of hacking as a means of identifying weaknesses in computer security.
In conclusion Hackers started off as experts in programming and curious intellectuals advancing the limits of technology, but have evolved into a diverse world view. Additionally the shift from hardware onto software to the internet have boosted the increase in number of malicious hackers. With the emergence of new technologies so is the renewed efforts to combat the loopholes and help protect the public.
In reality, most hackers are ordinary people with a great deal of curiosity, above-average skills with a computer, a good understanding of human nature, and plenty of time to kill. Hackers have no distinguishing characteristics. Your next-door neighbor could be a hacker, as could your niece or nephew, one of your co-workers, or even the kid who serves you coffee in the morning. Not all hackers are dangerous and out to destroy business or damage lives. The view of the general public toward hackers is mixed. A recent CNN-poll shows 33% of respondents labeling hackers as "useful," 17% seeing them "as a menace," and the majority (45%) seeing hackers as "both" useful and a menace (CNN, 1999).
All in all Cyber-security has become a major issue in our generation. Whether it is the ethics behind it or the personal gain. The formal ethical systems that could justify the actions reported in the article were clearly not good enough for a person to preform cyber-hacking. The actions provided in the article went against both the ACM and IEEE codes of ethics. Also the issues of privacy and intellectual property were clearly a damage for many businesses. New technologies should be developed to help prevent cyber-hacking. A better cyber-security should be set in businesses worldwide. This will benefit both the users and the owners. As well as help people understand ethics better.
...difficult to try and tell someone that ethics and moral are important for an individual or our society. Hacktivism being a recent adaptation of computer hacking has spread through out the world consistently from years ago. Some are political activists trying to make a point and achieve some goals and getting through tot the people. Hacktivist show society what the new problems are in the world without permission of the law. Some show what could happen if there was a full on cyber terrorism placed against us. In the end, these actions that were used to only show what could happen have turned into being a message that shows us they are just as dangerous as anyone else. The fear people have of hackers is about the same as criminals on the street.
Ethical hacking supports efforts to have more information about the organization’s system security so this helps to better the organization’s efforts to strengthen security measures against malicious hackers.
This case study paper will examine the Hacking Into Harvard Case where actions executed by college students jeopardized their potential opportunities to further their education at selected universities. The purpose of this study is to look at the moral issue that raises concern; which is whether the college students unauthorized actions should qualify as unethical behavior amongst the business schools or should the actions of the students be justified by shifting the blame of unethical behavior to the arms of the business schools and their third party application software.
As mentioned before, the focus of this paper is to compare and contrast human error and hacking. Hacking can be defined as exploitations to weaken a computer systems. Thus, creating a breach in information security and is done for many reasons mainly for financial gains and to exposed hiding agenda whereas human error occurs as a result of one of the following reasons: loss of administrative credentials, employee negligence, and third party access just to name a few.
The issue with tackling the ethical hacker scenario is that the event is almost entirely action based. There is no end to give meaning to the action and there is no finalized result or indication that it impacted happiness, which many ethical theories depend on. Namely consequentialism, utilitarianism and ethical egotism require an end result in one form or another. There is also no purpose in committing the hackings which makes applying moral theories that deal with motivation and intent, ethical egotism and aspects of virtue ethics, increasingly more difficult to do effectively. Therefore moral theories that apply almost exclusively to the action itself will be utilized in this argument.
Every day millions in some cases billions of dollars are made by businesses from income brought in by online sale of products and services. As businesses continually develop and expand their client base with online products and services so does the desire by criminals to exploit vulnerabilities in their e-commerce setup. The mass worldwide internet usage growth within the last 20 years has been “an approximate 16 million users in 1995 to an estimated 2,937 million in March of 2014” As the importance of e-commerce increases so does the need to protect the technological infrastructure that will carry out online transactions for each business regardless of its size. I will attempt to highlight and review the history of a few cyber crimes to show the progression of the crimes within the last 30-40 years. I also plan to review how the economy and consumers are impacted by cyber crimes. Finally I will make an effort to contribute with information gathering on how to lower the risk of a cyber attack from and individual user to a large scale business.
Ethical hackers are those people that chose to serve clients , working in corporations, rather than sitting in obscure rooms, trudging the internet for exploitable victims and causing unwanted and unnecessary discomfort. They are the people that chose their dangerous skills for the better - they crack systems on legal permission of corporations to point out any loopholes that can be exploited by their malicious counterparts. Even though ethical hackers use the same methods as their less principled counterparts, we can safely say that their intent is quite the opposite from the latter.
In the early years of computers and computerized technology, computer engineers had to believe that their contribution to the development of computer technology would produce positive impacts on the people that would use it. During the infancy of computer technology, ethical issues concerning computer technology were almost nonexistent because computers back then were not as multifaceted as they are today. However, ethical issues relating to computer technology and cyber technology is undeniable in today’s society. Computer technology plays a crucial role in all aspects of our daily lives. Different forms of computer technology provide unique functionalities that allow people to perform daily activities effectively and efficiently. In modern society, we use computer and cyber technology to communicate with friends and family via social networking sites, participate in business transactions, and get current news. Different tasks require unique technological feature in computer technology to function properly. Although, unique technological features increase people’s proficiency in accomplishing various tasks, unique technological features in computer and cyber technology increase security vulnerabilities. In many cases, the security vulnerabilities in computer technology are exploited by cybercriminals to invade people’s privacy, and steal people’s identity. We know that computers have no moral compass; they cannot make moral decisions for themselves. Essentially, people make moral decisions that affect others positively or negatively depending on how they use computer technology. Some of the biggest ethical issues facing people in the computing environment include privacy concerns on the web and identity theft. Privacy concerns...
Hacking was a term established in the 1960s. This word is the concept of unauthorised intrusion of a computer or network with malicious intentions behind them. This includes any technical effort of manipulating or damaging the normal behaviour of network connections/systems or stealing information. In this generation, hacking has become evidently significant and the debate of hacking being considered ethical or unethical arises. Therefore, will hacking ever be justified? The justification (reasonableness) of hacking has become a disputation of mixed opinions and emotions amongst society. These opinions range from hacking being considered immoral due to it being illegal activity and the vast negative impact it has on people. This includes the affirmative opinions on hacking; such as hacking being considered ethical due to the “white hat” hackers.