we humans are highly tech savvy in
today's times with the extensive use of
the internet and modern technologies
there is a massive challenge in
protecting all our digital data such as
net banking information account
credentials and medical reports to name
a few have you heard about the deadly
one a cry ransomware attack the attack
happened in May 2017 in Asia and then it
spread across the world within a day
more than 230,000 computers were
infected across 150 countries the one
equai crypto worm encrypted the data and
locked the users out of their systems
for decryption of the data the users
were asked for a ransom of 300 to 600
dollars in Bitcoin the users who use the
unsupported version of Microsoft Windows
and those who hadn't installed the
security update of April 2017 were
targeted in this attack the one a cry
attack took a toll on every sector
top-tier organizations like Itachi
Nissan and FedEx had to put their
businesses on hold as their systems were
effective - now this is what you call a
cyber attack to prevent such attacks
cyber security is implemented we can
define cyber security as the practice of
protecting networks programs computer
systems in their components from
unauthorized digital attacks these
illegal attacks are often referred to as
hacking hacking refers to exploiting
weaknesses in a computer network to
obtain unauthorized access to
information a hacker is a person who
tries to hack into computer systems this
is a misconception that hacking is
always wrong there are hackers who work
with different motives let's have a look
at three different types of hackers
blackhat hackers are individuals who
illegally hack into a system for a
monetary gain on the contrary we have
white hat hackers who exploit the
vulnerabilities in a system by hacking
into it with permission in order to
defend the organization this form of
hacking is absolutely legal and ethical
hence they are also often referred to as
ethical hackers in addition to these
hackers we also have the grey hat
as the name suggests the color gray is a
blend of both white and black these
hackers discover vulnerabilities in a
system and report it to the system's
owner which is a good act but they do
this without seeking the owner's
approval sometimes gray hat hackers also
ask for money in return for the spotted
vulnerabilities now that you have seen
the different types of hackers let's
understand more about the hacking that
is legal and valid ethical hacking
through an interesting story dan runs a
trading company he does online training
with the money his customers and best
everything was going well and Dan's
business was booming until a hacker
decided to hack the company's servers
the hackers stole the credentials of
various trading accounts he asked for a
lump sum ransom in exchange for the
stolen credentials Dan took the hackers
words lightly and didn't pay the hacker
as a result the hacker withdrew money
from various customers accounts and Dan
was liable to pay back the customers Dan
lost a lot of money and also the trust
of his customers
after this incident Dan gave a lot of
thought as to what could have gone wrong
with the security infrastructure in his
company he wished there was someone from
his company who could have run a test
attack to see how vulnerable systems
were before the hacker penetrated into
the network this was when he realized he
needed an employee who thinks like a
hacker and identifies the
vulnerabilities in his network before an
outsider does to do this job he hired an
ethical hacker John John was a skilled
professional who worked precisely like a
hacker in no time he spotted several
vulnerabilities in Dan's organization
and closed all the loopholes hiring an
ethical hacker helped Dan protect his
customers from further attacks in the
future this in turn increased the
company's productivity and guarded the
company's reputation
so now you know hacking is not always
bad John in this scenario exposed the
vulnerabilities in the existing network
and such hacking is known as ethical
hacking ethical hacking is distributed
into six different phases let us look at
these phases step by step with
respect to Al John our ethical hacker
will act before launching an attack the
first step John takes is to gather all
the necessary information about the
organization's system that he intends to
attack this step is called
reconnaissance he uses tools like in map
and H ping for this purpose John then
tries to spot the vulnerabilities if any
in the target system using tools like in
map and expose this is the scanning
phase now that he has located the
vulnerabilities he then tries to exploit
them this step is known as gaining
access after John makes his way through
the organization's networks he tries to
maintain his access for future attacks
by installing backdoors in the target
system the Metasploit tool helps him
with this this phase is called
maintaining access John is a brilliant
hacker hence he tries his best not to
leave any evidence of his attack this is
the fifth phase clearing tracks we now
have the last phase that is reported in
this phase John documents a summary of
his entire attack the vulnerabilities he
spotted the tools he used and the
success rate of the attack looking into
the report Dan is now able to take a
call and see how to protect his
organization from any external
cyberattacks don't you all think John is
an asset to any organization if you want
to become an ethical hacker like John
then there are a few skills that you
need to acquire first and foremost you
need to have a good knowledge of
operating environments such as Windows
Linux UNIX and Macintosh you must have
reasonably good knowledge of programming
languages such as HTML PHP Python SQL
and JavaScript networking is the base of
ethical hacking hence you should be good
at it ethical hackers should be well
aware of security laws so that they
don't misuse their skills finally you
must have a global certification on
ethical hacking to successfully bag a
position of an ethical
like John few examples of ethical
hacking certification are certified
ethical hacker certification see eh come
tia pin test plus and license
penetration tester certification to name
a few
simply learn provides a cyber security
expert master's program that will equip
you with all the skills required by a
cyber security expert you could have a
look at it by clicking the link in the
description so here's a question for you
in which phase of ethical hacking will
you install backdoors in the target
system a scanning B maintaining access
see clearing tracks D reconnaissance
give it a thought and leave your answers
in the comment section below
three lucky winners will receive Amazon
gift vouchers the endless growth of
technologies in this area is directly
proportional to the number of cyber
crimes cyber crimes are estimated to
cost six trillion dollars in 2021 hints
to tackle these cyber crimes
organizations are continuously on the
lookout for cyber security professionals
the average annual salary of a certified
ethical hacker is ninety one thousand
dollars in the US and approximately Rou
pays seven lakhs in India so what are
you waiting for get certified and become
an ethical hacker like John and put an
end to the cyber attacks in the world