Let's Be Ethical

Hackers are just people with a strong interest in computers, who enjoy experimenting and tinkering with them. By experimenting and tinkering, they gain a deeper knowledge of the inner workings of computers, which can be applied to cause computers to behave in unexpected or unintended ways.

Despite what stereotypes may depict, hackers are not necessarily criminal or malicious individuals. There are certainly some hackers who match the stereotype, but many hackers choose to use their skills ethically and legally.

Ethical hackers are hackers who use their skills ethically and legally. Ethical hackers are sometimes referred to as “white-hat” hackers.

Fun Fact: The white-hat/black-hat terminology comes from the trope of color-coded hats in cowboy films for heroes and villains.

Ethical and unethical hacking use similar knowledge and skills. What distinguishes ethical and unethical hacking is how and why the skills and knowledge are used.

Bug hunting is the process of searching, identifying, and eliminating bugs within an application or service.

The hacking process is ethical hacking tactics for organizational defense.

The hacking process consists of Footprinting, Scanning, Enumeration, System Hacking, Escalation of Privilege, Planting Backdoors, and Covering Tracks.

Footprinting, also known as the “Reconnaissance” phase, is passive information gathering of targets before active attack activities.

Scanning is an initial active/passive inspecting technique to gather technical information on target systems.

Enumeration is the consolidation and gathering of more detailed information on target systems and networks.

System hacking is the planning and execution of attacks conducted based on the information gathered in the previous steps.

With a successful escalation of privilege, the attackers can gain access to the systems/networks of the organization.

Planting backdoors is leaving an entry point to a compromised system for easy access in further attack activities.

Covering tracks is the act of removing or destroying signs of intrusion and activities performed on a system.