What Is Ethical Hacking? Pros And Cons of It.

Pabitra Kumar Sahoo
November 19, 2021
1 Comment

Ethical hacking is a very broad term consisting of authorized attempts at hacking a specific target to find possibilities of security vulnerabilities in it. A cyberattack with the permission of the legal owners of any software, website, application and etc. is called Ethical hacking. Replicating different tactics and procedure used by actual hackers is the main objective. Which in-turn helps in resolving any security threats before an actual hacker with pernicious intentions hacks and steals any confidential data.

Another name used for ethical hackers is ‘White Hats’. White hats are hacking experts. Firstly, companies hire ethical hackers to hack into their systems. Then, these experts use the tools for hacking and gaining insight of security misconfigurations. Finally, white hats provide resourceful information about various potential security issues that can lead to a potential data breach. Now, the company can work with their development team to resolve the security threats before the world gets to know about them. This in turn saves the precious data belonging to the users or the company. Additionally, by this ethical hackers save the company’s reputation as well.

Need Of Ethical Hacking

Consider a scenario, you are head of a multi-national IT firm and everything is going well, likewise your product is doing well in the market; customers love using it! Suddenly, out of the blue one day you employee informs you that there’s been a data breach in your network. The data breach is now publicized. Further, the jeopardization of sensitive data regarding your users and your company. National and international news channels are telecasting this news on prime time.

As a result your firm’s stock prices have plummeted and consumers are furious, furthermore filing of numerous lawsuits against you and your firm has took place. Your firms net worth has dropped, causing you to lose millions of dollars.

Does this event sound familiar? Let me enlighten you, this is exactly what happened with Mark Zuckerberg; the founder and CEO at Facebook (now META).

Facebook bared a compromise of over 533 Million sets of user data in the recent data breach. Additionally, Facebook lost over 160 million dollars. Furthermore, the money spent on fighting the numerous lawsuits filed against Facebook by different organizations and individuals.

Undivided attention on security testing of Facebook would have averted this occurrence. Hiring ethical hackers and penetration testers and etc. to examine its security standards. All the lost wealth, userbase, database and reputation could have been saved; if only security threats were not neglected.

This explains why ethcial hacking is a crucial aspect of security misconfigurations for your firms network and products.

Now let’s understand different types of ethical hacking

Ethical hacking helps resolvoing many security threats possible to cause data breach. There are different types of ethical hacking that help in identifying different security miscofigurations present in your existing product.

We have mentioned different types of ethical hacking below: –

Local Network – This type of ethical hacking involves gaining access to illicit data by an individual gaining full access by means of local network.
Stolen Engineering – This attack is a process which involves gaining illicit access by means of telecommunications for gaining information which can be used to cyberattack and hack directly.
Wireless Network – This procedure involves the use of wireless network which reduces the liability to the hacker by means of radio access provided to the wireless network space.
Code Review – This includes overserving the codebase which is present in the verification system. As a result, inspection of the pros and cons of the codes included in the software is easily achievable.
War Dialing – This procedure helps in identifying the preset information that is available in the product’s servers/modems which is very sensitive and dangerous to the corporate firms.

Advantages

Helpful in fighting against cyberattacks.
Resourceful in taking preventive measures against hackers.
Essential in order to develop a system that averts any kind of breach by hackers with malicious intents.
Crucial for security testing for banking and financial service providing firms that assures safety for its customers.

Disadvantages

Chances of corrupting data during the testing.
Chances of exposing sensitive information to 3rd party for illicit use.
Ethical hackers are a bit expensive to hire.

Conclusion

Ethical hacking is an important yet dangerous procedure for your company. Finally, finding & hiring trustworthy ethical hackers is a tedious task.

QualySec offers surety for safety and privacy of your company. Providing affordable yet secure and best in class solution of security testing. QualySec aims to aid companies promising quality products to the market.

No point in delaying your company’s growth because of security concerns, contact QualySec and assure the success of your brand.

1 Comment

private blog network says:

April 19, 2022 at 12:16 am

I think this is among the most significant information for me.
And i am glad reading your article. But should remark on some general things, The website style
is wonderful, the articles is really nice : D.

Good job, cheers

Reply