Vague laws- the main cause of confusion for the role of ethical hacking

Ultimate solution-  the responsibility of both companies and ethical hackers to follow the defined rules

Ethical hacking is a need of today’s world. It has, over the past few years, proven to be the best solution to fight against cybercrimes. The difference between an ethical hacker and other hackers is, they are given permission and access to the system to test the security of the system, and they are paid to do so. The sole purpose of companies to hire an ethical hacker is to help them identify the vulnerabilities in their system which can be exploited by an actual hacker.

There are still some reservations that people have regarding the use and legality of ethical hackers. People often get confused from the tasks and rights given to an ethical hackers and question their existence. There are some steps that the company and ethical hacker needs to take to legally protect themselves in case the partnership doesn’t progress as planned are as follows:

• Establish a working agreement between the company and ethical hacker.
• All the conditions need to be clearly stated in the working agreement with all the legal actions that can be taken if the contract is breached by any partner.
• The agreement should clearly define the use of customer’s data, hacker’s level of accessibility, and channels of accessibility.
• The methods used by an ethical hacker should be defined with proper goals, tasks, and outcomes.
• Deliverables and their format should also be clearly stated along with the limitation and boundaries for the hacker.   
• In case of access of any confidential information by an ethical hacker, the procedures and measures should be clearly defined and a nondisclosure agreement needs to be signed by the hacker.
• “Problems identified by the hacker should be expressed fully without keeping any information to themselves and exploit in the future; in case of this situation company will have the right to take legal action against the hacker”; it should be the most important clause in the agreement.

This working agreement provides protection to both the parties legally. Companies need to clearly formulate the clauses of this agreement. It is always a risk for companies to hire an actual hacker and handover their system to them. They have to be sure that an appointed hacker doesn’t take any illegal and non-written in the agreement.

Ethical hackers are often called “Good faith hackers” where their intension was good and wants to protect companies from security breaches. In some cases, security researchers also take ethical hacking into practice for conducting some experiment and report their findings.

If  an organization needs security in form of work agreement then ethical hackers also need some kind of legal security. This legal security is commonly referred as bug bounty programs and vulnerability disclosure programs also referred as VDPs. 

Bug bounty program

A one of a kind public writing by a company, which announces reward for ethical hackers for detecting vulnerabilities in their system. It is a written agreement which allows the hackers to work in the defined boundaries and protect ethical hackers from any legal charges.

Vulnerability disclosure programs (VDPs)

It is similar to the bug bounty program without any monetary incentive. It protects any ethical hackers who report any vulnerability in the system without causing any damage and with goodwill. Similar to the bug bounty program, VDPs are also publically announced to encourage ethical hackers to identify weaknesses in their system.  

Both these agreements clearly define the working conditions of ethical hackers which need to be read carefully. An ethical hacker should act upon the defined working boundaries in both the working agreement and VDPs or bug bounty program.

Companies and ethical hackers, both are each other’s essential need. They both need to work together with some written agreement discussed above so that both parties can protect themselves and achieve their objectives. People, over the course of time, have started to accept it as a legitimate profession which can benefit companies for cybercrimes. Ethical hacking is considered as a part of the risk management program with the sole purpose of improvement, so in many cases, it is declared to be legal.