ETHICAL HACKING

Hacking and hackers are terms that generally tend to build a negative impression in people’s minds. Each time one hears either of these terms, the first thing that immediately comes to mind is the image of computer criminal sitting in one corner of a dark room and committing a crime. In reality, that is not true at all! Most people straightway start associating the term “Hackers” with computer criminal or people who cause harms to system, release viruses and so on. But, I do not blame them for holding such a negative opinion. Unfortunately, one tends to blindly accept with is being fed to them by popular media. Nowadays the media has been wrongly and outrageously referring to computer criminals as Hackers. They fail to recognize the fact that computer criminals and hackers are two totally distinct terms and are not associated with each other whatsoever. People have wrong notions and for reasons not justified at all, they have a negative opinion and utter dislike for Hackers and persons associated with Hacking.

And recently, I surveyed that there are so many institutes in India’s which offer computer security training and certification program to train the generation of computer security experts. On more occasions than not, when people hear about the program they always develop a negative thought about that course is all about and they all think that the institute is probably training people to be criminals..!! People fail to notice that the description of Hackers provided by popular media is nowhere close to the actual description of hackers. In reality, computer security has two types of people-hackers and crackers.

Hackers are actually good, pleasant and extremely intelligent people, who by using their knowledge in a constructive manner help organization to secure documents and company secrets, help the government to protect national documents of strategic importance. Rather these are the people who help to keep computer criminals on the run. On the other hand, crackers are the real bad guys or the criminals who indulge in cybercrime, deface website, release viruses, steal credit card number and create havoc on the Internet.

Traditionally and historically, humans have been utilizing harmful object to protect themselves when the need arises. The invention of the nuclear technology or weapons as simple as knives immediately comes to maid. Training people hacking is something like in the medicine.

Each time a new virus is discovered, weaker forms of the same virus are injected into the human body in order to provide immunity to the body against it. All of us already know that vaccines have helped us save millions of lives. But what strikes me most about vaccines is how they actually work. Vaccination is like fighting evil with evil for positive gains.

Crackers are getting real smart these days and it is becoming increasingly easier for them to break into a system, create havoc and escape without leaving any traces behind. Laws are absolutely useless when system administrators themselves are becoming ignorant of computer security and are dismissing all hackers as people belonging to the dark side of society. It has become absolutely necessary to teach people how cracker work, how cracking is executed and how to protect computer systems from crackers. If this is not done soon, then the crackers will remain ahead in the security race. So, being an “IT ASPIRANT” we really don’t want to happen, do we?   

If everybody who uses the Internet understood its risks, if everybody who uses the Internet understood how the computer criminals work, if everybody who uses the Internet understood the tools and techniques already known to the bed guys, then the Internet would be a much safer place to be in. Wouldn’t Internet users be able to better protect their data and system if they were more aware of how computer criminal works? If we are able to learn and understand how someone can break into your system, then wouldn’t we fix the loopholes even before the cracker strikes? All I want to say is that instead of being resentful and afraid of fire, it would be much better if we learn to live with fire. Let us fight fire with fire itself! We manufacture knives every single day. A knife in the hands of a murderer can take lives, but the same knife in the hands of a surgeon can save lives! So just because there is a risk of a knife being misused by murderers, that does not mean that we should stop manufacturing knives. So, Happy Hacking Folks!