What is Ethical Hacking?
Ethical hacking is a practice of penetrating a system or network to identify threats and potential vulnerabilities which malicious attackers may use to compromise the security of that system or network and steal data/information.
Ethical hacking is practiced to improve the system’s defence by fixing the vulnerabilities found during testing. In order to test, companies engage ethical hackers to hack into their system, simulating real-world attacks and check for security loopholes. An Ethical hacker analyse the system security by using the same methodologies and tools used by a regular hacker, but with authorization.
Why Ethical Hacking?
A few decades back, the concept of hacking barely existed. As internet has now spread in all direction and has become all-pervasive, cyberthreat has become a pressing concern for every organisation.
The digital footprint expanded with the quick adoption of the technology by businesses and enterprises has made mobile-banking, on-line shopping, on-line trading and social networking possible. Its many benefits help the business growth by creating new opportunities.
As there are two sides to a coin, this growth also comes with a catch…
Unfortunately, this digital boom has opened new doors for cybercriminals, as “Data is the new Gold. It’s the new Oil”.
They have started to extort money from business and even government organization by breaching their system and stealing data.
Organizations face challenges on a regular basis to update and install various security features to prevent the falling victims in the hacker’s hands.
(The below image shows the real time cyber-attacks)
Now, this is where an Ethical Hacker comes into play.
They are hired by companies to think like a hacker and check their system/network for any vulnerability.
So, Ethical hacking has now become an investment the companies can’t forgo.
