Difference Between Ethical Hacking And Phishing Hacking
What is Hacking?
Hacking is identifying weakness in computer systems or networks to exploit its weaknesses to gain access. Example of Hacking: Using password cracking algorithm to gain access to a system
Computers have become mandatory to run a successful business. It is not enough to have isolated computers systems; they need to be networked to facilitate communication with external businesses. This exposes them to the outside world and hacking. Hacking means using computers to commit fraudulent acts such as fraud, privacy invasion, stealing corporate/personal data, etc. Cyber crimes cost many organizations millions of dollars every year. Businesses need to protect themselves against such attacks.
In this tutorial, we will learn-
- Common Hacking Terminologies
- What is Cyber Crime?
- Types of Cyber Crime
- What is Ethical Hacking?
- Why Ethical Hacking?
- Legality of Ethical Hacking
- Summary
Before we go any further, let’s look at some of the most commonly used terminologies in the world of hacking.
Ethical Hacking
Ethical hacking and ethical hacker are terms used to describe hacking performed by a company or individual to help identify potential threats on a computer or network. An ethical hacker attempts to bypass system security and search for any weak points that could be exploited by malicious hackers. This information is then used by the organization to improve the system security, in an effort to minimize or eliminate any potential attacks.
What constitutes ethical hacking?
For hacking to be deemed ethical, the hacker must obey the following rules:
Expressed (often written) permission to probe the network and attempt to identify potential security risks.
You respect the individual's or company's privacy.
You close out your work, not leaving anything open for you or someone else to exploit at a later time.
You let the software developer or hardware manufacturer know of any security vulnerabilities you locate in their software or hardware, if not already known by the company.
The term "ethical hacker" has received criticism at times from people who say that there is no such thing as an "ethical" hacker. Hacking is hacking, no matter how you look at it and those who do the hacking are commonly referred to as computer criminals or cyber criminals. However, the work that ethical hackers do for organizations has helped improve system security and can be said to be quite effective and successful. Individuals interested in becoming an ethical hacker can work towards a certification to become a Certified Ethical Hacker, or CEH. This certification is provided by the International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC-Council). The exam itself costs about $500 to take and consists of 125 multiple-choice questions in version 8 of the test (version 7 consisted of 150 multiple-choice questions).
Phishing Hacking
Here’s another revealing story about a couple who experienced an email hack, surrendering all their sensitive data to the hacker.
An example of a phish was when 2 million individuals received a fake email from a retailer about an order being processed. Those who took the bait inadvertently downloaded malware that infected their personal computers.
And the one we all still can’t stop talking about – the largest retail security breach in US history, which exposed over 70 million users’ personal information—had elements of both phishing and hacking.
More about phishing
While hacking has already established a notorious reputation and long rap sheet, phishing is now a top 3 data breach threat1, worthy of further exploration and education. It’s an attack that’s becoming more common, with forged emails difficult to distinguish from real ones. I know I received multiple phish emails last year and even almost clicked on the link. According to DBIR , phishing attacks, or social engineered attacks, jumped by 52% in 2012.
Need more insights? We’ve written an ebook, Anatomy of a Phish, that helps you understand the details of this attack and what to do about them. Tablet-centric folks can download the ePub format, which will directly display in an iBooks or Kindle app, and traditionalists have their PDF version. If you need a few quick nuggets of information, you can browse through some of the highlights in the condensed web-version below.
