What is Ethical Hacking?

Quite often, information security professionals are required to have CEH certification, which means they have the knowledge of ethical hacking and are able to perform it as part of their work responsibilities. Ethical hacking, which is also referred to as penetration testing or intrusion testing, is an essential part of assessing the vulnerability and weakness of computers, networks and information systems. As a result of ethical hacking, security specialists identify the risks of real attacks and take measures to protect the organizations they work for.

It is recommended that IT specialists take a certified ethical hacker course to understand the procedures of ethical hacking and the instruments they are allowed to use. They should adopt the mindset of a hacker for the duration of the penetration test and find out the answers to the following crucial questions:

1.       What can the possible attacker gain access to? What information or system is the most vulnerable and should be protected well?

2.       What can the attacker do with the information available to him? What are the potential consequences of this breach for the organization? What are the hidden risks and losses?

3.       Is the attack being noticed by the information security team? Can it be quickly refuted? Can such attacks be prevented in the future?

Sometimes ethical hacking can be outsourced. In this case, a professional hacker will be hired by the organization to check the effectiveness of the information security team. However, this is only done by large corporations where the real attacks can have drastic consequences for the company and its customers. Most often, however, the organizations send their specialists to obtain CEH certification and perform the necessary tests in-house.

When information security specialists take the certified ethical hacking course, the first thing they learn are the main procedures and rules of ethical hacking. Without following them, ethical hackers may run into legality issues and may even be confronted by the corporate lawyer. The essential aspect of ethical hacking is that it should be done only with authorization from the organization. Without it this person will be regarded as a random cybercriminal with all that it implies.

The rules for ethical hackers are the following:

·         Obtain written permission to penetrate the network and test the system to identify potential risks.

·         Respect people’s privacy and commercial confidentiality.

·         Once the test is over, make sure to close off your work, so nobody else gets access to sensitive information.

·         Let the software developer or hardware manufacturer know about any security issues with their products that you came across.

Once a hacker is given the task to perform an intrusion test, they should carefully plan the attack and carry it out in the following stages:

1.       The first stage in ethical hacking is defining the scope of the test and its goals. It’s also important to determine the methods that will be utilized. At this stage the attacker gathers all types of information available about their target and makes a prospective footprint.

2.       In the second step, the hacker performs scanning to figure out how the target reacts to the intrusion attempts. These attempts are made when the application’s code is static and also while it’s functioning.

3.       Then comes the attack itself. The hacker uses various tools to determine vulnerabilities and exploit them by stealing information and intercepting traffic to understand what damage can be done to the system as the result of the attack.

4.       In this step of penetration testing, the attacker remains in the system for a long duration of time in order to spread inside the network or gain access to the server.

5.       The final stage of the test is to compile the results by analyzing and commenting about the vulnerabilities exploited, access to the data, and the amount of time that the tester can remain in the system unnoticed.

The main responsibility of the tester, as determined in the certified ethical course, is to report all the vulnerabilities of the networks and systems found during the assessment. The data gathered as a result of an intrusion test will be properly analyzed and used to develop the measures to improve the security of the system. This knowledge is imperative for anyone who need to minimize or eliminate potential attacks.

CEH certification course, offered at TechnoEdge Learning, consists of a five-day boot-camp designed to prepare the students for the certification exam. The course is delivered in a combination of lecture format and lab-style practical assignments administered by professional instructors. The cost of the course is $4,000, including the one-time exam voucher. Register on the TechnoEdge Learning website for the upcoming session in March 2020.