Ethical Hacking

 What is an Ethical Hacking?

Ethical Hacking sometimes known as as Penetration Testing is an act of intruding or penetrating into system or networks find out threats, vulnerabilities in those systems which a malicious attacker may find and exploit causing loss of data, financial loss or other major damages.

An ethical hacker attempts to bypass system security and search for any weak points that could be exploited by malicious hackers. This information is then used by the organization to improve the system security, to minimize or eliminate any potential attacks.

Who is Hacker?

A Hacker is a person who discovers and exploits the weakness in computers and/or networks to gain access. Hackers are typically experienced computer programmers with knowledge of computer security.

Hackers are categorized according to the intent of their actions. Hackers are categorized as follows:

White Hat

A hacker who gains access to systems/networks with a view to fix the identified vulnerabilities. They may also perform penetration Testing and vulnerability assessments. They also identified as Ethical Hackers

Black Hat

A hacker who gains unauthorized access to computer systems for personal gain. The intent is usually to steal corporate data, violate privacy rights, transfer funds from bank accounts etc. They also identified as Crackers

Grey hat

A hacker who is in between white and black hat hackers. He/she breaks into computer systems without authority with a view to identify weaknesses and reveal them to the system owner.

Script kiddies

A non-skilled hacker who gains access to computer systems using already made tools available in internet.

Hacktivist

Hacktivists are the protesters of the internet. A hacker who uses hacking to send social, religious, and political, etc. messages. This is usually done by hijacking websites and leaving the message on the hijacked website.

Hacktivism includes defacing websites and uploading promotional material, so that the viewers would receive info based on hackers’ intention, not the developer of the website.

Phreaker

A hacker who finds and exploits weaknesses in telephones instead of computers.

Suicide Hacker

This hacker type gets its name from the notorious Suicide Bombers, people who cause a lot of damage before killing their own selves. Likewise, a suicide hacker would know that his identity would be revealed, or he would be caught but proceeds to carry out a hacking attempt nonetheless. This could either be for money, or for fame or even forceful, just like a suicide bomber.

Red Hat Hacker

Another good hacker type to break the stereotype, the red hat hacker acts brutally towards black hat hackers. Their sole objective is to destroy the effort of every bad hacker type and to bring their entire infrastructure down. A red hat hacker would be on the lookout for a black hat hack, intercept it and hack into the black hat hacker’s system. Not only would this halt the attack, but also push the black hat hacker out of business.

Blue Hat Hacker

Of the many hacker types, the blue hat hacker is the amateur. Like script kiddies, the blue hat deploys readily available techniques but specifically targets an entity out of a bad intention. Usually, these are revenge attacks made using amateur techniques like affecting a website with too much traffic using a script.

Green Hat Hacker

This type of hacker is the one who learns in the world of hacking. A green hat hacker is usually responsible for no real activity but is easily recognizable for his intent to learn and understand how it all works. Green Hat Hackers are often part of large learning communities online, where they watch videos and tutorials on how to make it big.