What is Ethical Hacking?
The act of hacking is defined as a process of finding a set of vulnerabilities in a target system and systematically exploiting them. You probably have been a victim of hacking if you are in IT. For example, You might have your identity stolen, or your computer has/had malware, etc. Or You hear about the things in the news, like data breaches. Hackers are everywhere, and we actually know what they are.
Concept of BLACK HAT and WHITE HAT
But the thing here is that hackers are always not bad guys. Like the ones who are trying to take down the government or any other bad intents. There are good ones too. The bad hackers or hackers that have malicious intent are called BLACK HAT HACKERS. The good hackers are called WHITE HAT HACKERS, referred to as Ethical Hackers.
As far as the skill sets, both of them have the same skill sets. For example, a variety of technical skills to break into your network, steal your data, or to plant viruses. And these skill sets vary through large varieties. For example, some may be good at breaking the systems, some in breaking the network, or some in writing or developing malicious codes.
The Difference
So basically, the difference between a black hat and a white hat is PERMISSION. Ethical hackers or white hat have it, the black hat does not have it. Suppose if you start a company, you got web applications, servers, networks, etc. And you tried to build the network as secure as possible. You have installed the latest firewalls, malware detectors, monitoring, and all kinds of stuff. But still, do you know if can get hacked or not?
The answer is no. You can never know how truly your network or web application is secure unless you have someone test it. This is the part where an Ethical Hacker comes in. Ethical or white hat hackers are hired to break into the company’s system o network to test it. The difference is that after breaking into your system or network, they won’t have any bad intentions. For example, stealing the company’s data or stealing your money. All they do is write a report on how they break into the systems or network. So that in future the company might fix it.
The white hat hackers who break into the system by finding holes or vulnerabilities are often referred to as penetration testers.
Different categories of hackers:
GRAY HAT HACKERS
There is also a middle ground, known as GRAY HAT HACKERS. This type of hackers breaks into the company’s system without their explicit permission. But they too, don’t have malicious intent. Some of the Gray Hat Hackers will hack into a company without their permission. And they won’t steal data or anything but they will report to the company that they have found some vulnerabilities without having malicious intents.
SCRIPT KIDDIES
There is one type of hacker regardless of any ethics. They are called Script Kiddies, they are basically not hackers but all they do is they use legitimate hacking tools without knowing how they work. They just install various ready-to-use hacking tools and use them for hacking.
HACKTIVISTS
This is like the kind of Black Hat Hackers. They hack without permission. But they have different intentions like overthrow governments. Or overthrow companies that have bad morals in their opinions. Hacktivists try to spread ideologies to people. Often there are groups of hacktivists who try to send a social message through hacking.
STATE-SPONSORED HACKERS
These kinds of hackers are hired by governments. They use their skills to overthrow other governments or to infiltrate other governments. Another thing the state-sponsored hackers do is to spy on other governments.
What is CEH?
CEH is the certified ethical hacker certification. This certification is provided by EC-Council. This is the most intense certification for ethical hackers and penetration testers. One of the reasons that CEH is so popular is that it provides a good career prospect. But there are certain barriers to this exam. This exam is not for everyone, it requires a minimum of 2 years of IT security experience. It’s not a surprise that is one of the most hardest entry-level exams in the IT world. The other barrier to this exam is its price. The exam costs 950$ which is around 70685.5 INR. And the courseware or study material they provide is 850$. Even with such barriers it is one of the most popular and trusted exams in Cybersecurity.
