Ethical hacking is a perfect ability to help companies keep their assets safe. Hackers white hat use it to detect vulnerabilities in websites and take measures before black hackers exploit them. Becoming a WHITE HAT HACKER requires effort and dedication. Learning about system hacking, social engineering, cyber-attack, methods, tools, and exploiting vulnerabilities is not a matter of a day. However, after intensive preparation, these professionals are the right people to protect your organization.
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What is a white hat hacker?
A white-hat hacker is a hired person for an organization to help the owner through ethical hacking find and fix weaknesses in the system’s security before black hat hackers exploit them.
What is ethical hacking?
The term “ethical” means that the hacker has permission from a system or network owner to access it. According to the recent meaned, ethical hacking is not about breaking into systems and stealing data. On the contrary, it’s about improving the security of systems through vulnerability detection and helping maintain a secure digital environment. Generally, an ethical hacker uses hacking skills to identify vulnerabilities before other hackers can easily exploit them.
However, there are many different types of ethical hacking, including network penetration testing, social engineering, website scanning, and vulnerability assessment. Ethical hackers do not use any exploits or destructive software to break into systems. They use tools such as scanners, crawlers, and other methods to find vulnerabilities in target systems. Hence, for an organization to be considered ethical hacking compliant, it must follow computer security standards. Moreover, it should have software for assigning ethical hacker tasks to those who are qualified for them.
Differences between a white hat, grey hat, and black hacker.
White hat hacker
- Legally hired to test the security system.
- Uses ethical hacking to penetrate the computer systems, network, and web.
- Identifies vulnerabilities to help organizations.
- Provides advice to protect the clients’ data.
Grey hat hacker
- Illegal.
- Infringes the privacy law and security protocols.
- Finds security breaches but fixes bugs or vulnerabilities.
- Strengthens the organization’s security defenses.
- Provides recommendations, solutions, or tools to patch vulnerabilities.
- Usually requests a small fee to fix the issue.
Black hat hacker
- Illegal.
- Breaks the law and security protocols.
- Deploys cyber-attacks and cyber threats.
- Writes, distributes, and sells malware.
- Finds and exploits security breaches.
- Encrypts, lock, steal, modify, and delete data.
- Demands extortion money to give back access to the files, system, and databases.
- Sells financial and personally identifiable information on the Dark Web.
- Earns money for doing political and corporate espionage.
How to become a white hat hacker?
Becoming a white hat hacker is a time-consuming and challenging process. You must understand how the hacking world works and the intricacies of the systems you will be accessing. Also, it would help if you studied the most common computer languages such as C++, Python, Java, and HTML. Once acquired this knowledge, you will be able to use them with hacking techniques to find vulnerabilities in systems or networks.
Usually, each organization has different education criteria to hire a white-hat hacker. However, a bachelor’s or master’s degree in information security, computer science, or mathematics provides a strong foundation. Instead, those with only a military background, especially intelligence, can also opt for being a white-hat hacker. Military service is also a plus for employers who require or prefer to hire employees that already have a security clearance.
There are many white hat hacking and security-related IT certifications that can help you increase your curriculum. If you have little or no work experience, EC-Council can help you achieve the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH). The intermediate-level CEH credential focuses on system hacking, enumeration, social engineering, SQL injection, Trojans, worms, viruses, and other forms of attack, including denial of service (DoS).
However, it’s favorable to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of cryptography, penetration testing, firewalls, honeypots, and more. If you don’t have prior work experience, skills like Windows and Linux systems administration, TCP/IP, and working knowledge of virtualization platforms can help you in the course.
Importance of hiring white hat hackers
According to the constant increase in black hacking, websites are increasingly exposed to threats. However, it is the function of owners must find solutions that ensure their sites’ stability, reliability, and security. IT experts like white hackers are highly qualified to identify how secure a website is. They can determine the system’s risks and discover ways to exploit them through specific tests that only they can do.
White-hat hackers can scan the code and identify any security breach by making a website security audit. Even they can detect any weaknesses in the website protection. Once the white hat finds a way to exploit a risk means a vulnerability in the system’s security.
Generally, SIEM solution providers like UTMStack have a SOC team that includes white-hat, blue-hat, and red-hat hackers. They are the team encharged with monitoring and testing the network and systems security. That’s why when companies need to protect their websites, they can hire services like dark web monitoring, vulnerability assessment, and penetration testing. Once hired, the white-hat hacker will identify and fix vulnerabilities before becoming issues.
Hire a white hat will help you to compliant security and privacy regulations like HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, etc. Also, you will receive the right advice to keep computer systems secure.
Conclusions
Ethical hacking is a perfect ability to help companies keep their assets safe. Hackers white hat use it to detect vulnerabilities in websites and take measures before black hackers exploit them. However, becoming a white hacker requires effort and dedication. Learning about system hacking, social engineering, cyber-attack, methods, tools, and exploiting vulnerabilities is not a matter of a day. Therefore, gets a bachelor’s, master’s degree in the field, or an approved CEH credential. In this way, you will become a professional white-hat hacker able to help any company protect its website ethically.
