It might come as a surprise to see the words “ethical” and “hacking” in the same sentence. Ethical hackers, also known as white hat hackers, are professionals that are hired to find vulnerabilities in a company’s computer network. Ethical hackers help companies strengthen their cyber security by pointing out weaknesses. Here are the steps of ethical hacking.
Planning
Before an ethical hacker attempts to test a network’s security, they must first develop a plan. They have to define the scope of the test they are going to perform on the system as well as the method they are going to use to test it. These tests are developed through research on search engines, web services, email, DNS, and more. The hacker must first understand how the system works before testing its security.
Scanning
After coming up with a testing plan, the next step is scanning. An ethical hacker scans the system to analyze how their specific target will react to different types of intrusion attempts. They typically scan for vulnerabilities when the application code is static and when it’s functioning for more accuracy.
Gaining Access
Whether or not the system can be accessed is the important part of ethical hacking. Ethical hackers use several methods to find vulnerabilities such as back doors, cross site scripting, and SQL injections to find vulnerabilities in a network system. Once vulnerabilities are spotted, they are exploiting through stealing and intercepting traffic to get an idea of the damage it could cause to a company’s network.
Keeping Access
When real hackers breach a network, they need time to steal the information they are looking for. Ethical hackers do their best to maintain access once they’ve breached a network’s security. This gives companies an accurate estimate of not only where their system is vulnerable, but also how long hackers can stay in the system before being detected.
Final Analysis
The last step in ethical hacking is providing an analysis to the company. This analysis shows all of the ethical hackers findings, which gives a company an idea as to what improvements need to be made to their network security. Ethical hackers can spot problems and vulnerabilities early on so that companies can enhance their security before a legitimate breach takes place.
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