Ethical hacking- a fast-growing job opportunity for software engineers

Ethical hackers- need to follow code of operations and earn money with and without a designated job title

With the advancement in IT, there had been an exponential increase in cyber-attacks throughout the world which has forced the world to solve this problem by thinking like a hacker. The solution that has helped the world against the fight of cyber-crimes is the use of ethical hackers. Internationally and even different countries have started to realize the importance of cyber-crime laws. With the passage of time, stricter cyber laws are enforced across the globe which makes things more difficult for black-hat hackers if they are caught. It is also one of the many factors that has made them realize the opportunities black-hat hackers can have from being converted into ethical hacking.

It has become a fulltime career for software engineers who are interested in the field of cyber-security. Different universities are now offering degrees and certification for ethical hacking. These opportunities are helping to inspire software engineer and even black hat hackers to choose their career in ethical hacking. The best example of a black-hat hacker who changed his field into white hat hacking is Kevin Mitnick and with his talent and efforts in the right direction became a world-renowned ethical hacker; who is respected around the world. He even provide his services to some of the major companies of the world. Many people are seeking ethical hacking as a career due to the success and inspiring stories of some of the most famous ethical hackers. 

Over the years, it is the most growing job opportunity for software engineers with great earnings if taken the right path, if not a person might end up in prison. There are many codes of operations and codes of ethics that an ethical hacker has to follow. These rules are made to protect an ethical hacker from any legal action but it is upon the hacker to strictly follow them. Following are advices for becoming a successful ethical hacker.

Monetary benefits

For software engineers, ethical hacking is an interesting field. Some ethical hackers takes their tasks as a challenge or level in a hacking game in which they have to succeed. It is one of the software fields which offers major monetary benefits. Many ethical hackers earn their money by getting different job titles. Some of the job titles includes: security engineer, security tester, security manager, security analyst, or even cyber-security researcher. Depending on their career achievements or knowledge, talent, industry trend the monetary benefits can differ.

There are some ethical hackers who don’t want to entitle themselves with any job title and want to work freely, individually, and remotely without joining any organization and restricting themselves to them only. These type of ethical hackers earn their money through the bug bounty programs.

Bug bounty programs

Many companies, even other than IT companies make public announcement, in which they encourage ethical hackers to test their system. If they are able to do so then they will be able to earn money against it. In the bug bounty program, an organization clearly define limitations for ethical hackers. These limitations should be followed by ethical hackers strictly to not only to help the organization do the penetration testing in the real world environment but also to protect themselves from any legal action. The bug bounty program bounds ethical hackers to follow data protection rules and clearly warn them about any illegal action in the system and its consequences. This program also bounds ethical hackers to report any bug they found in the system without keeping any information to themselves.

Different companies depending on the severity of the bug have announced different monetary rewards like Apple offers up to $200,000, Microsoft offers up to $100,000, etc. The bug bounty programs of these companies are available on hacker one database.

The most important condition in both either working solo or even entitled with a job title, ethical hackers need to read the working conditions carefully. These conditions will be defined in either the bug bounty program or in the working agreement. These conditions needs to be followed carefully to protect them from any legal problems.