Working of an ethical hacker

Obeying the Ethical Hacking Commandments

Every Ethical Hacker must follow few basic principles. If he do not follow, bad things can happen. Most of the time these principles get ignored or forgotten when planning or executing ethical hacking tests. The results are even very dangerous. 

Working ethically

The word ethical can be defined as working with high professional morals and principles. Whether you’re
performing ethical hacking tests against your own systems or for someone who has hired you, everything you do as an ethical Hacker must be approved and must support the company’s goals. No hidden agendas are allowed!Trustworthiness is the ultimate objective. The misuse of information is absolutely not allowed. That’s what the bad guys do.

Respecting privacy: 

Treat the information you gather with complete respect. All information you obtain during your testing — from Web application log files to clear-text passwords — must be kept private.

Not crashing your systems

One of the biggest mistakes is when people try to hack their own systems; they come up with crashing their
systems. The main reason for this is poor planning. These testers have not read the documentation or
misunderstand the usage and power of the security tools and techniques.

You can easily create miserable conditions on your systems when testing. Running too many tests too quickly on a system causes many system lockups. Many security assessment tools can control how many tests are performed on a system at the same time. These tools are especially handy if you need to run the tests on production systems during regular business hours.

Executing the plan:

In Ethical hacking, Time and patience are important. Be careful when you’re performing your ethical hacking tests.A Hacker in your network or an employee looking over your shoulder may watch what’s going on. This person could use this information against you. It’s not practical to make sure that no Hackers are on your systems before you start. Just make sure you keep everything as quiet and private as possible.

This is especially critical when transmitting and storing your test results. You’re now on a reconnaissance mission. Find as much information as possible about your organization and systems, which is what malicious Hackers do.Start with a broad view of mind and narrow your focus. Search the Internet for your organization’s name, your computer and network system names, and your IP addresses. Google is a great place to start for this.

Don’t take ethical hacking too far, though. It makes little sense to harden your systems from unlikely attacks. For instance, if you don’t have a internal Web server running, you may not have to worry too much about. However,don’t forget about insider threats from malicious employees or your friends or colleagues!

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Prevention from Hackers

What can be done to prevent Hackers from finding new holes in software and exploiting them? Information security research teams exist to try to find these holes and notify vendors before they are exploited. There is a beneficial competition occurring between the Hackers securing systems and the Hackers breaking into those systems. This competition provides us with better and stronger security, as well as more complex and sophisticated attack techniques.Defending Hackers create Detection Systems to track attacking Hackers, while the attacking Hackers develop bypassing techniques, which are eventually resulted in bigger and better detecting and tracking systems. The net result of this interaction is positive, as it produces smarter people, improved security, more stable software,inventive problem-solving techniques, and even a new economy.Now when you need protection from Hackers, whom you want to call, “The Ethical Hackers”. An Ethical Hacker possesses the skills, mindset, and tools of a Hacker but is also trustworthy. Ethical Hackers perform the hacks as security tests computer systems.

Ethical Hacking

Also known as Penetration Testing or White-Hat Hacking  involves the same Tools, Tricks and
Techniques that Hackers use, but with one major difference 'Ethical hacking is Legal '.Ethical hacking is performed with the target’s permission. The intent of Ethical Hacking is to discover
vulnerabilities from a Hacker’s viewpoint so systems can be better secured. Ethical Hacking is part of an overall information Risk Management program that allows for ongoing security improvements. Ethical hacking can also ensure that vendors’ claims about the security of their products are legitimate.As Hackers expand their knowledge, so should you. You must think like them to protect your systems from them.You, as the ethical Hacker, must know activities Hackers carry out and how to stop their efforts. You should know what to look for and how to use that information to thwart Hackers’ efforts.You don’t have to protect your systems from everything. You can’t.

The only protection against everything is to unplug your computer systems and lock them away so no one can touch them—not even you.
That’s not the best approach to information security. What’s important is to protect your systems from known Vulnerabilities and common Hacker attacks.It’s impossible to overcome all possible vulnerabilities of your systems. You can’t plan for all possible attacks especially the ones that are currently unknown which are called Zero Day Exploits. These are the attacks which are not known to the world. However in Ethical Hacking, the more combinations you try — the more you test whole systems instead of individual units — the better your chances of discovering vulnerabilities.

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Introduction To Hacking

An Introduction Video  To Hacking

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Google At A Glance

Click here to Download  a  Powerpoint  Presentation about Google 

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Ethical Hacking

Ethical Hacking is testing the resources for a good cause and for the betterment of technology. Technically Ethical Hacking means penetration testing which is focused on Securing and Protecting IT Systems.

Ethical Hacker

The term 'Ethical Hacker' refers to Security Professionals who apply their hacking skills for Defensive purposes.

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Types of Hackers

Coders

The Real Hackers are the Coders, the ones who revise the methods and create tools that are available in the market. Coders can find security holes and weaknesses in software to create their own exploits. These Hackers can use those exploits to develop fully patched and secure systems.Coders are the programmers who have the ability to find the unique vulnerability in existing software and to create working exploit codes. These are the individuals with a deep understanding of the OSI Layer Model and  TCP/IP Stacks.

Admins

Admins are the computer guys who use the tools and exploits prepared by the coders. They do not develop their own techniques, however they uses the tricks which are already prepared by the coders. They are generally System Administration, or Computer Network Controller. Most of the Hackers and security person in this digital world come under this category.Admins have experience with several operating systems, and know how to exploit several existing vulnerabilities.A majority of Security Consultants fall in this group and work as a part of Security Team.

White Hat Hacker

A White Hat Hacker is computer guy who perform Ethical Hacking. These are usually security professionals with knowledge of hacking and the Hacker toolset and who use this knowledge to locate security weaknesses and implement counter measures in the resources.They are also known as an Ethical Hacker or a Penetration Tester. They focus on Securing and Protecting IT

Systems.

Black Hat Hacker

A Black Hat Hacker is computer guy who performs Unethical Hacking. These are the Criminal Hackers or Crackers who use their skills and knowledge for illegal or malicious purposes. They break into or otherwise violate the system integrity of remote machines, with malicious intent. These are also known as an Unethical Hacker or a Security Cracker. They focus on Security Cracking and Data stealing.

Grey Hat Hacker

A Grey Hat Hacker is a Computer guy who sometimes acts legally, sometimes in good will, and sometimes not.They usually do not hack for personal gain or have malicious intentions, but may or may not occasionally commit crimes during the course of their technological exploits.They are hybrid between White Hat and Black Hat Hackers.

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Hacker vs. Cracker

What Is the Difference Between a Hacker and a Cracker?

Many articles have been written about the difference between Hackers and crackers, which attempt to correct public misconceptions about hacking. For many years, media has applied the word Hacker when it really means Cracker. So the public now believe that a Hacker is someone who breaks into computer systems and steal confidential data. This is very untrue and is an insult to some of our most talented Hackers.

There are various points to determine the difference between Hackers and crackers

Hacker

Definition - A Hacker is a person who is interested in the working of any computer Operating system. Most often,Hackers are programmers. Hackers obtain advanced knowledge of operating systems and programming languages. They may know various security holes within systems and the reasons for such holes. Hackers constantly seek further knowledge, share what they have discovered, and they never have intentions about damaging or stealing data.

Cracker

Definition - A Cracker is a person who breaks into other people systems, with malicious intentions. Crackers gain unauthorized access, destroy important data, stop services provided by the server, or basically cause problems for their targets. Crackers can easily be identified because their actions are malicious.

Whatever the case, most people give Hacker a negative outline. Many malicious Hackers are electronic thieves.Just like anyone can become a thief, or a robber, anyone can become a Hacker, regardless of age, gender, or religion. Technical skills of Hackers vary from one to another. Some Hackers barely know how to surf the Internet,whereas others write software that other Hackers depend upon.

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