What is Ethical Hacking? Types Of Ethical Hacking

Hacking refers to one of the largest shortcomings with computer technology regards. We are living in the digital age currently where everything is connected to the internet and available online. The organization keeps its data files digitized as it makes the management of data a lot easier, but it comes with some consequences.

Nowadays, data leaks, digital attacks, money theft, and cyber espionage are frequent occurrences in the news, which people with malicious intent can orchestrate these types of activity from sitting behind a computer screen in the comfort of their homes. With internet access across the globe, a huge number of hackers are performing cybercrime activity that naturally increases the demand for ethical hacking and cybersecurity professionals. Before understanding this in detail, let’s understand ‘What is Ethical Hacking?’

In this blog, Wissenhive will go through the most important topics in detail about ethical hacking:

● What is Ethical Hacking?

● What are the different types of hacking?

● Importance of Ethical Hacking

What is Ethical Hacking?

Ethical Hacking is a term used to describe the hacking activity by an individual or organization to identify potential threats on a network or a computer. It is a legal way to exploit weaknesses and vulnerabilities in organizations’ IT infrastructure with permission.

Ethical hacking is also identified as penetration testing and white hat hacking. It involved authorized attempts to obtain unauthorized or illegal access to a data and computer system, which is used to enhance network security and system security while testing by fixing the founded vulnerability.

Ethical hackers hack organizations and businesses to access overall security conditions. Hacking processes include various hacking techniques or methods against the company to bypass security authorities and controls by exploiting vulnerabilities in the application, systems, and networks to avoid real threats.

Different types of Hacking

The term “Hacker” can be classified into various categories, which include white hat, black hat, and grey hat hackers. They are identified through their intent of hacking. The concept for a different type of hackers came from Spaghetti Westerns, where bad guys use to wear a black cowboy hat and vice versa.

White Hat Hackers

White hat hackers or ethical hackers are those types of hackers who never intended to harm the system. Instead of doing harm, they try to find out the weaknesses in the network or computer system as a part of vulnerability assessments and penetration testing.

Ethical hacking is done for security purposes and considered not illegal, which clears why it is one of the most demanding and popular jobs in the IT sector. A huge number of companies are always ready to hire skilled, ethical hackers for vulnerability assessments and penetration testing.

Black Hat Hackers

Black Hat hackers are popularly known as crackers who hack the system in order to gain unauthorized access to the network and computer system and steal sensitive information or harm the operation of the system.

The black hat hackers do not perform activity for security purposes and do intentional harm in order to steal corporate data, damaging the system, violating the privacy of an organization, blocking network communication, and so on, which makes them illegal.

Grey Hat Hackers

Grey hat hackers are a great blend of white hat and black hat hackers who act without any malicious intent but for fun or self-satisfaction. They exploit a weakness of the security in a network or computer systems without having the owner’s knowledge or permission.

The main intention of hacking is to bring the owners’ through targeting weaknesses and getting little bounty or appreciation from the owners.

Miscellaneous Hackers

We all are aware or heard about white, black, and grey hat hackers as they are some of the well-known hacker’s classes, but Wissenhive decided to add some of the hacker categories based on their roles.

● Red Hat Hackers

Red hat hackers are some of those hackers who perform both types of activities, making them a perfect blend of white and black hat hackers. They are on the level of hacking top-secret information hubs, government agencies, and usually everything that comes under the category of sensitive information.

● Blue Hat Hackers

Blue hat hackers are someone outside of the computer security consulting companies who focus on bug testing a system before launching it. They work on loopholes that can be exploited by hackers and try to close these gaps with the help of advanced skills. A popular organization like Microsoft has a team of blue hat professionals to give extra attention to security while understanding the loopholes.

● Elite Hackers

Elite hackers refer to a hacker that has advanced knowledge and skills about the technology level, which requires years and years to master elite hacking skills. They are masters in writing their own discovered exploits as they have a deep understanding of IT systems.

● Script Kiddie

A script kiddie, skid, or skiddie refers to a non-expert and unskilled individual who have little understanding of undying concepts by using programs, pre-packaged automated tools, and scripts, which are developed by or written by others for attacking network and computer systems.

● Neophyte

A neophyte is known as a “Green Hat Hacker,” “n00b,” or “newbie,” which shows that an individual is new in phreaking and hacking and having very limited knowledge and no working experience in hacking and technology.

● Hacktivist

An individual who has advanced skills in technology and can perform an act of hacktivism or denial-of-service attacks is known as a Hacktivist. They focus on defacing a company’s website or leaking information about the social, religious, ideological, or political messages.

Importance of Ethical Hacking

Now, we know what ethical hacking is and the types of hackers. Let’s understand why penetration testing and ethical hacking are important to the field in the IT sector.

● Testing strength of the password

● Ensuring privilege levels and security settings in the domain database and accounts.

● Strategies by testing out the exploits

● Penetration testing after adding a new security patch or upgrading/updating the software

● Defense against denial-of-service attacks

● Testing of anti-intrusion features and network security

● Ensuring application’s security features, which protect the user and organizational database

● Authentication protocols validity testing

These aforementioned tasks are done by ethical hackers to protect the integrity of a work environment and digital lifestyle. The organization hires ethical hackers to keep themselves safe from the disaster that can be performed by unethical hackers.

We have covered all the topics in detail and hope you find this blog informative. Let’s know what you want us to cover next in our upcoming blogs. Till that time, keep learning and enhance your knowledge.