Ethical hacker – an information security expert who hacks with the permission of the owner 

Ethical Hackers- tasked with finding the vulnerabilities through penetration testing

With the rapid advancements in information technology and the Internet of Things, the devices have become more centrally connected and have become more vulnerable to threats and breaches. Hacking is not only done on the company level but any person can be a victim of it, the recent cases of identity theft are a common consequence for a person and have also become a question of national security. Common activity a hacker does is either to steal the data, copy them, halt or corrupt the system. Their target can be the network, single device like servers or group of devices etc. depending on the system structure. The hackers can  be categorized into  the following categories:

Black hat hackers

Black hat hacker; a cyber-criminal is an IT expert involved in malicious activities either for earning money illegally. He can work for someone against their competitor to damage their reputation in the industry or to gain money. It is also done to gain access to the confidential secrets and files of any individual or organization and gain benefits against it.

White hat hackers

Hackers hired by companies work like black hat hackers but with the permission of the owner to test the system to identify the potential security risks. White hat hackers often called ethical hackers to use different types of testing which covers web application, system testing, server testing, network testing, and social engineering. If a hacker founds any problem in the system then the IT team can solve the problem before it could be exploited by any external hacker. Ethical hacking also helps in developing the coding instructions that will help in incorporating the security element from an early stage and works closely with the development team.

Gray hat hackers

Hackers with some principles and rules; which can be neither labeled as a white hat or black hat hackers. The hackers whose aim is not to harm the organization but instead help the organization by identifying their security vulnerabilities. These hackers were not hired by the organization nor were they permitted to do but perform the duty of an ethical hacker.

Stages of Ethical hacking

There are different phases of ethical hacking which includes the following steps:

Planning

An ethical hacker needs to identify the scope and the goal to test the part of the system along with the testing and penetrating strategies. The hacker should have a clear understanding of the target and the possible vulnerabilities and what tools will be used. 

Scanning

It is the most important step for any type of hacker to anticipate the behavior of the targeted system upon their intrusion in the system in every possibility. It helps in outlining the further course of action for them to be successful in their mission. 

Gaining access

The next important step is after passing all the barriers undetected, he enters in the system. It is crucial for the hacker to perform their task in the minimum amount of time. The access can be gained through different techniques like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, etc. and identify the weak spots in their system which needs serious attention and the amount of damage that an intrusion can cause. It also depends on the amount of access which a hacker was successful in achieving.

Maintaining access

In this step of the process, the ethical hacker tests for how long and which parts of either the system or the network he can retain without undetected. It tests whether the system is able to detect the existence of an outsider or any unusual activity in the system and take the initial preventive measures to reduce the loss.

Analysis

An ethical hacker provides a detailed analysis of the parts hacked and responses of the system. An ethical hacker identifies the parts that are poorly secured and require immediate attention. He also reports the time he was able to remain in the system undetected.  Some standard protocols and technology services are used by organizations to help them get basic security but they can’t sit in confidence over their security measures because new malware, viruses etc. are also developing rapidly.