Ethical hacking- also known as penetration testing; can sometimes cause problems and legal actions- as the methods used are same for any other hacker
Practical examples of ethical hacking and the consequences faced by these ethical hackers- a lesson for other ethical hackers and different organizations
Following are some real experiences by some ethical hackers and the consequences that they had to face due to problems in their actions and how they helped famous companies to solve their security issues and save them from serious damage. The examples are as follows:
Dave Dittrich
A well-known software engineer and cyber security researcher. He is known for in contribution in the field of cyber-security and research in DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) tools and detecting compromised hosts with the help of ethical hacking techniques.
For research purposes, he sometimes had to access personal information of different users in the tested compromised systems. He didn’t face any legal issues due to his hacking because he followed all ethical hacking guidelines and never misused any information. For transparency purposes, he had already informed the government authorities and also engaged the participant in his research.
Glenn Mangham
A software developer from the UK, he noticed some security issues in the architecture of Yahoo. He, using ethical hacking techniques, identified more security problems in the Yahoo search engine send it a detailed report of his findings along with their solutions. Fortunately, Yahoo considered this act in ethical hacking and appreciated him. He later tried to do the same thing with Facebook but during this process, he downloaded the source code files of facebook. Facebook didn’t consider this act in ethical hacking to help them improve security, like Yahoo. He then had to face legal action as Facebook reported the FBI of this illegal activity. He later was imprisoned for eight months.
Charlie Miller
An American cyber security researcher and a renowned ethical hacker worked for Uber, Twitter, and the National Security Agency of America. He similar to Dave Dittrich never encountered any legal actions, because, he strictly followed the rules of ethical hacking. He is known for discovering vulnerabilities in devices and softwares. He has helped Apple over the years in identifying different security problems in their different products including Apple’s Safari, MacBook, and chips. He has saved Apple numerous times from different attacks including DDOS, etc.
He also detected problems in the Google App store, which help hackers to steal data, money. Google solved this problem with the identification and help of Charlie Miller. In 2015, Miller and Valasek detected a weaknesses in Jeep Cherokee’s entertainment system. This vulnerability, if exploited by real hackers can cause serious damage to the company as well as the customers. Through the detected weakness, hackers were able to control the car’s engine and other essential commands remotely but with the help of Miller and his friend, the company was able to solve this problem before any serious damage could occur. He is currently working for Cruise Automation as a cyber-security researcher.
Mark Litchfield
He, similar to Glenn Mangham, made $1.5 million from Yahoo and similar companies for finding problems and weaknesses in their system. He is an expert in data communication between devices. He also runs a free course on cyber-security.
Kevin Mitnick
He is now a well-known ethical hacker in the history of cyber-security initially he wasn’t. he was involved in black hat hacking and was arrested in 1995. He was found involved in the hacking of different companies and even served his time in jail. During his time of sentence, he was found hacking again but in 2000 he become a renowned white-hat hacker and used to get paid for these consultants. He also does penetration testing for some of the renowned companies in the world.
Joanna Rutkowska
A cyber-security researcher from Poland, her expertise is in rootkits; a malicious software that hides itself and cause damage to the system. She became popular from the black hat conference in 2008 and identified vulnerabilities in Vista Kernel.
Greg Hoglund
He is an ethical hacker who has a patent in fault injection. It is commonly used for software testing. He is a former employee of the US government and the intelligence community. His field is also in rootkits.
Other than these there are other hackers who have gone through similar like experiences. It is all upon ethical hackers to strictly follow ethical hacking guidelines and protect themselves, their community, and help save different organizations from serious damages.