What Is An Ethical Hacking ? How To Become An Ethical Hacker

By Author: Prasanjit Roy
Total Articles: 3
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In the wake of international conflicts, the emergence of terrorist organizations, cut-throat competition, and much more, there is a rise in cyber attacks all over the world. Criminals are breaching security systems by injecting malware, worms, viruses, or ransomware. Sometimes, they even pose a threat to national security and hence ethical hacking has emerged. In short, ethical hacking is a type of hacking where the hacker legally breaks into the computer network or system of an organization to mitigate the risk of cyber crimes. Such hackers or security professionals are also known as White Hat hackers. In fact, ethical hacking is now one of the most in-demand IT jobs, and every year, many students aspire to become Ethical Hackers.

Ethical Hacking is done in several steps that are as follows:
• Planning and reconnaissance
• Scanning
• Gaining Access
• Maintaining Access
• Clearing Tracks
• Reporting

It is expected of ethical hackers to report all the system or network vulnerabilities and weaknesses to the management to improve the overall security and defend the ...
... system from any malicious attacks. Ethical hackers understand that cyber attacks have a great potential to destroy an organization, especially in an interconnected world, and keep themselves updated about the evolving nature of online threats.

Steps to Become an Ethical Hacker

Although, many students prefer the route of first getting a network certification such as CCNA and then, proceeding towards completing a security certification course such as CISSP to start a career as an ethical hacker, here are some steps.

Ethics are vital
While there may be plenty of stories where blackhat hackers were converted into ethical hackers in the past, one thing that is a pre-requisite for
becoming an ethical hacker is ethics. It is ethics that instill a sense of discipline and demonstrate trustworthiness which is paramount in this field.

Familiarity with hacking techniques
As any website, device, web server, web application, or system can be hacked, it is essential to think about how this may happen and what kind of tools or techniques can be used by malicious hackers. Some of the popular hacking techniques are password guessing, cracking, session hijacking, session spoofing, network traffic sniffing, and SQL injection.

There are now many training institutes that have a detailed course curriculum in which all these techniques are covered along with concepts such as cryptography, social engineering, and network scanning. Many of these also offer practical training and guaranteed job placement.

Networking and programming
Next, one must acquire strong networking and programming skills. Proficiency in any of the programming languages such as Python, C++, Perl, Ruby, or JavaScript is more than enough.
It is also necessary to develop some basic knowledge about system hardware and database management as both are crucial for becoming an ethical hacker.

Apart from the above steps, a person must acquire some other vital skills, such as problem-solving, critical thinking, creative thinking, and so on. Lastly, patience, hard work, and perseverance are paramount in this field which anyone can develop in course of time.